


Lullaby for Cain

by balefully



Category: One Direction (Band), The Voice (Ireland) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Anxiety, Blow Jobs, Drug Use, Faked Suicide, Frottage, M/M, Murder, Spitroasting, Threesome, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 15:54:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10994154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/balefully/pseuds/balefully
Summary: In the mid 1950s, Niall dreams of being a star like the famous pop icon Louis Tomlinson. When he finds himself in the right place at the right time, he does whatever he can to make it happen. Louis's record label contracts Niall to retrieve their prodigal son from the jaws of debauched luxury and force him to finish his latest album. Of course, Niall takes the job. Niall follows Louis to Italy where he lives in sin with the film ingenue Harry Styles in a lush villa by the beach. Niall can't help falling in love with their lavish lifestyle--and with them. Louis proves mercurial and demanding, and pushes Niall into a violent mistake that will haunt him for the rest of his life. As he spirals, Niall is pursued by Zayn Malik, Louis's best friend. He's been suspicious of Niall from the start, and as he and Harry close in on Niall's secret, Niall must defend himself in the only way he's able. Even the love of Bressie, a kind musician from Niall's hometown, can't save him in the midst of this collapsing house of cards. With international police involved and the body count rising, Niall must face the music alone.





	Lullaby for Cain

**Author's Note:**

> A Talented Mr. Ripley AU, with all that entails. Please heed the warnings.
> 
> Thank you to the wonderful and talented [blueylouie](http://blueylouie.tumblr.com) for the gorgeous art! You can find his art post [HERE](http://blueylouie.tumblr.com/post/161042465748/lullaby-for-cain-by-balefully-psycholinguistic). Art also embedded in the fic.
> 
> Eternal thanks for [Becka](http://realmenwearpuppypants.tumblr.com)'s beta skills and salvaging this at the last minute.

The brand new Capitol Records building just north of Hollywood and Vine is unmissable and more than a little intimidating. Niall pushes his browlines up his nose, squinting into the LA sun. His hands are sweaty on the hot black leather of his portfolio; he keeps a tight grip on it as he strides up to the front door. His trousers need a good hemming and the shoulders of his suit jacket are slightly too wide, but he cuts a professional enough figure that the receptionist at the front desk smiles at him. His jumping pulse slows where it beats against the hot skin of his wrist.

"Hi there," he says, grinning, pushing anxiously at the bridge of his glasses again. His accent is bright and American, just like he'd learned from the radio. 

"The waitstaff are in the employee lounge, down the hall to the right," the receptionist says, gesturing past the desk. She snaps her gum and Niall follows her hand to glance down the sleek hallway. A few young men are milling around the door to the lounge, each wearing a black suit almost exactly like Niall's, crisp if not quite perfectly fitted. "The head of hospitality will be down soon to coordinate service for the party."

Niall presses his lips together but keeps smiling, scrambling for a response. Rather than correct the mix-up and risk getting ushered out, he says, "Thank you, miss. Hope you have a fine day." He nods pleasantly to her and follows the other lads, fingers tighter on the spine of his folder.

They don't ask for identification. Waiters get doled out to stations, and Niall folds cheerfully into the mix, mind whirring anxiously underneath. So much is happening all in a rush; it's easier to go with the flow, to see where it takes him. When they pass the coat check, he lifts a smart green blazer from the nearest rack, just in case. He feels safer with options.

They wind up in a ballroom-sized conference space, a bar spread in one corner, softly steaming food in silver chafing dishes along one wall. Niall watches the other suited workers and does what they do, helping with setup until men who look like record executives start appearing in the midst of the guests. Smartly dressed managers and fresh-faced young artists mill around. Niall whips off his jacket, swapping it with the blazer from the coatroom, some deep-seated instinct driving him.

A hand closes around his upper arm while he's making his way towards the group gathered around the piano in the corner opposite the bar. "Excuse me," a man says in an English accent, and Niall turns with a placid smile, hands clenching. It's Simon Cowell--probably not immediately recognisable to middle America, but Niall's done his homework. 

"Mr. Cowell!" Niall says, reaching out to shake his hand. He uses a posh English accent this time, smooth and charming. He slips a hand nervously into his pocket. "What a pleasure."

"So you're one of ours," Simon says, a smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth. "Staking out the competition?" He takes a sip of champagne. Niall looks back at him blankly, and Simon nods at Niall's chest. The lapel pin on the blazer that Niall hadn't even noticed reads _OKeh_. "I didn't think this was the kind of party they'd let interns come to."

Niall squeezes his sweaty fist in his pocket, but keeps smiling. "It's all who you know, right?" he says. He shrugs blithely and grabs a glass of champagne for himself from a passing tray. The waiter carrying it is called Mickey, and he helped Niall light the Sterno under the chafing dishes. Relief floods through him when Mickey doesn't seem to notice. "I'm Niall Horan, sir. Pleased to meet you."

"This might just be fate, Niall," Simon says, slinging an arm heavily over Niall's shoulders instead of shaking his hand. Niall laughs and goes with it; Simon must be drunk. It doesn't matter in the face of the fact that one of the most successful record executives in the world is tugging him closer.

"Seems like it must be, from where I'm standing," Niall says. "What makes you think that?"

"Well, I was just talking to the board the other day," Simon says, and Niall plumbs the depths of what he knows about OKeh Records, which suddenly doesn't seem like nearly enough. "We're having a devil of a time getting the next Louis Tomlinson record out. He needed some peace and quiet to write, wanted to do some recording on the Continent, says the sound from the studios there is unmatched."

"I've heard that," Niall says, not needing to feign his fascination as Simon talks.

"Regardless," Simons continues, and he's starting to sound irritated now, gazing into this champagne like he's somewhere else. "It's been far too long, and costs far too much money. You know we're trying to cut costs, figure out how we can start scaling up on recording stereo LPs. No time for this faffing about."

"No, sir," Niall says, agreeable. "The artists should be thinking about the bigger picture."

"Exactly!" Simon says, pulling back for a moment, eyeing Niall up and down like he's just seeing him for the first time. "I think you're exactly what I need. Someone young, fresh. Trustworthy. Knows what we're about. He needs to hear it from you, not me. How would you like to do your part for Columbia, Niall?"

It isn't lost on Niall that they're currently drinking Capitol's champagne in Capitol's brand new state-of-the-art building, but he seizes the moment. "Anything I can do to help, Mr. Cowell."

"Simon, please." Niall is practically vibrating with opportunity. Simon's grin is sharp, but Niall takes his proffered hand in a sturdy shake. "I hope you don't get seasick."

"I love the ocean," Niall says, and that's not a lie.

"You're going to bring Louis Tomlinson back to me," Simon says. He misinterprets Niall's searching look. "Don't worry, you'll be well-compensated. And I'll set you up with a first-class ticket."

Niall doesn't remember to pick up his portfolio of songs before he leaves that night. It's not until he's in a cab back to the poky little room he rents from a family in Valley Village that he remembers. The cab passes a hitchhiker, guitar strapped to his back, boots almost worn through. He has a notebook in one hand. Niall remembers his music with a jolt, feels the loss suddenly in the pit of his stomach. But opportunity won't wait.

*

Louis Tomlinson is, by all accounts, holed up in Ischia, a volcanic island in the Gulf of Naples that Niall had never heard of before looking it up in an atlas. Knowing the exorbitant amount of money it's costing his label to keep him in the style to which he's become accustomed, it's no wonder that Simon and the other execs are keen to have him returned safely and productively back home with a finished album. He's also reportedly got a hot temper and is quick to fly off the handle. They've had to bail him out of the mire that resulted from sometimes-bloody fights more than once.

Niall has spent the past few days listening to every Louis Tomlinson song he could get his hands on, reading the few interviews he could find, and studying the packet of information and travel documentation from Simon. He arrives in New York City with plenty of time to get to the boat. He's never sailed out of New York Harbor before, but he's in his proper line and ready to board the ship to Italy with one modest suitcase and the OKeh lapel pin in pride of place on his jacket.

"Oh, sorry mate!" A young man clips Niall's shoulder as he avoids tripping over Niall's suitcase, and Niall catches his arm with a laugh. 

"Alright?" Niall asks, adopting Louis Tomlinson's native Yorkshire accent. He didn't even mean to, really--he's just been thinking about nothing else. 

The man rubs at the back of his neck, embarrassed. "Fine, thanks. I'm having a hell of a time sorting out where I'm supposed to be. I'm Liam." He pauses for a moment. "Tweedy." 

"Hi, Liam Tweedy," Niall says.

"I'm impressed," Liam says. Niall sucks in a quick breath, tense, before Liam nods at Niall's lone suitcase. "You're English, aren't you? I've got a mountain of luggage. You've just got the one, and so far from home." Liam beams at him. He looks earnest and pleased, and Niall tries to seem friendly. 

"You're in the right place, I think," Niall says with a broad smile. "As near I can tell, that's the T line right there, anyway."

"Thanks--" Liam starts, waiting for Niall to fill in the rest.

"Louis," Niall says. He looks at the S-T sign posted by them and finishes, "Tomlinson."

"Thanks, Louis," Liam says, clapping him on the back. "That name sounds familiar, but I'd remember your face if we'd met before, I'm sure of it."

Niall laughs, glossing it over. "Of the Doncaster Tomlinsons," he says, wry, and Liam laughs with him. It's good Niall didn't speak with his real accent--culchie, less than worthless here and everywhere. 

A ticket-taker up at the head of the line calls out, the line starts moving, and Niall clutches at the ticket in his hand with _Horan_ printed on it, thinking fast. "It's so silly, you know. I, uh--my mother's maiden name. I travel under my mother's maiden name, sometimes." He ducks his head down, conspiratorial, and Liam leans in to hear him. "I'm a singer, live out in LA most of the time, recording and that. I'd rather people didn't know who I was when I travel. Gets to be a nuisance sometimes."

Liam hums. "Absolutely," he says. "Explains why that name sounded a bit familiar, doesn't it." Liam falls quiet for a moment, and then, "You know, I'm not actually Tweedy either," he whispers. He touches the side of his nose and winks. "I'm Payne. Of the textile Paynes." 

"Better get in the P line instead, then," Niall says, laughing, pointing to the next line over. "Pleasure to meet you, _Mr. Tweedy_."

"Partners in deception," Liam says with a good-hearted grin.

Niall bows his head and clicks his heels for Liam and works his way up closer to the front of the alphabet. He waits until Liam's given him a last wink before he ducks into the H line. Relief unfurls in chest. He pulled it off, the cloak of Louis's identity warm and soft around him. With this he has success, with this he's someone talented, and worth knowing. He shines, and the reflection of it glints in Liam's eyes.

*

The Italian sun feels like heaven, not strained through a layer of smog like in LA. It'll be hell on Niall's pasty skin but it's the first thing he feels when he disembarks, squinting through his glasses, hand ineffectually shading his face. He mouths silently to himself in the packed bus on the way to Ischia, guidebook and Italian dictionary in hand. The roads are more like steep cobblestone paths, faded walls perilously close to the windows of the bus. The driver sings out cheerfully as they arrive, and Niall stumbles into a square on the edge of glistening water, lively with chickens and donkeys and a smiling priest speaking with a group of washerwomen. 

The hotel where the label is putting him up is a grotty little place, economy over comfort for the likes of an intern, but with the windows thrown open and the sun pouring in, it's a palace. Simon picked someplace near the beach, the place where Louis rents a slip for his boat. It's a miracle or possibly just a show of arrogance that he didn't check with any of the managers at the label to make sure it was okay for Niall to hare off halfway around the world on an errand, or that if he did, they didn't question him about a Niall Horan working for the company. 

Niall doesn't have much to unpack, but he settles anyway, and brushes up on some basic Italian from his guidebook. "Excuse me, where can I find..." he says, hot water sluicing over his shoulders in the tiny stall shower, eyes closed in the steam. "Will you please have him call me at…"

Louis, according to what Niall's learned so far, will spook if confronted directly. He's argumentative, headstrong, and while he inspires loyalty he also inspires frustration. A chance meeting will work better than calling ahead, giving him no time to come up with excuses or get the upper hand. He's a spirited horse refusing the bit, and Niall's the jockey who needs to bring him under control.

After some calling around, Niall heads towards the beach. He managed to get his hands on a swimming costume before he left LA, but without an advance from the label, he could only afford one from the remainders bin. It's chartreuse, in a high-waisted brief style, and when Niall gets out to the sand and shucks off his clothes, he's never felt more out of place. 

Everyone around him is tanned and burnished, sharply styled, a stark uniform mass of human beauty. Beside them he's scrawny and pale, hairless and young. He squints against the sun glaring off oiled bodies and clutches his Oxfords in one hand, glasses threatening to slide down his nose in the slick of the suncream he's slathered on. He didn't think to bring sandals, and he hates himself for it.

When Niall spots him, Louis is lying out on a lounge chair, an umbrella shading him from the worst of the sun. He's nut-brown, though, heavily tanned, his hair thick and brushed back from his forehead, salty-crisp from sea spray. He's wearing a pair of gleaming white swimming trunks that just skim his shapely thighs, and his eyes are a bright crystalline blue when they're not decadently closed against the reflection of sun off the sand. "Haz," he says, almost a drawl, "a refill on the Montrachet, if you don't mind." Louis is clearly not a tall man, his feet don't reach to the end of his lounge chair. He has delicate hands and a modest amount of chest hair. Niall feels instantly ridiculous; clumsy and young.

"Haz"--Harry, he assumes--is apparently the long, lithe man stretched out on a towel in the sand next to Louis. He's well-muscled but slender, with a generous mouth and wide green eyes. He's let his hair grow quite long, but it suits him, soft ringlets like a girl's brushing his broad shoulders, damp from the ocean. He reaches for the bottle of wine iced in a silver wine chiller between them, and refills an empty wineglass half-buried in the sand to keep it from falling over. He offers it to Louis, who takes it languorously, fingers trailing along his forearm and wrist, brushing against his palm. It's intimate, like something Niall shouldn't be seeing. It doesn't stop him from looking. "Thanks, love," Louis says, and takes a sip of wine. Harry sits up on his elbows, tilting his chin, a sweet and expectant smile on his face. Louis rolls his eyes but grins, and leans down to kiss him. He lingers, and Harry licks at Louis's lips, like he can still taste traces of the wine and it's delicious.

Niall casts around, eyes wide even in the sun, but no one else on the beach seems to have noticed the kiss. Or if they did, they don't care. His heart races, thumping painfully in his chest, and his mouth is dry. He barely even has to pretend when he trips over the edge of the towel next to Louis's armchair and it sends him staggering.

"Alright?" Louis says, clutching his wine glass, looking up at Niall with imperious eyes. 

Niall laughs, ingratiating himself. He tries to swallow against the dryness in his mouth, tries not to stare at Harry's body or the curve of Louis's hip into his swimming trunks. Tries not to think about the kiss. He's never seen anything like that before. "Sorry, mate," he says quickly, using his real voice this time. Louis may not recognise the Irish midlands, but he'll hear enough to feel superior, to project simplicity and innocence onto Niall. "I'm a right--" he trails off, pushing his glasses up his nose, ducking closer under Louis's umbrella. "Louis? Louis Tomlinson?" he says, feigning surprise, serendipity.

Louis heaves a put-upon sigh. "No, Chet Baker," he says, bored.

"It's only--I've just signed with OKeh," Niall says, ruffling a hand through his hair, wishing he had a hat. "I'm here to see the studio. You're an inspiration, really. Wouldn't have gotten into the industry without you. Maybe you've heard--"

"I haven't," Louis says flatly. 

"Don't be rude," Harry says. "He seems nice."

"This is Harry Styles," Louis says, making a token effort at manners. "Harry, this is--" he gestures distastefully at Niall.

"Niall Horan," Niall says, holding his hand out towards Harry. He clutches his Oxfords tight to his chest, the toes digging into his ribs. Harry smiles at him, and it's warm and lovely and lights up his whole handsome face. The way his features are put together should look odd, but he's just captivating. 

"Charmed, I'm sure," Harry says. He's got a posh English accent, though Niall couldn't place exactly where from. Louis sounds common in comparison, but he carries it off so well it doesn't even matter. 

"He likes everybody," Louis says, exasperated but with a warm glimmer of fondness. He pushes at Harry's shoulder until he loses his grip on Niall's hand. Louis is wearing a gold ring on one hand, nothing beyond the number 28 in a blocky typeface. It oddly suits him.

"I do too," Niall says, grinning. 

"He's going to be famous," Louis continues, brushing his fingers through the ends of Harry's salt-stiff hair. "Already a Hollywood star."

"I'd hardly say a star," Harry says, and he turns over on the towel, folding his arms under his head, the long, tan expanse of his back bared to the sun. His swimming costume is a pair of black briefs considerably smaller than Niall's, and Niall swallows thickly. Harry's thighs shush softly together, and Niall rips his gaze away, looking for someplace to sit. 

Louis's keen eyes bore into him. "Can I help you with anything else?" he asks. Niall's hands sweat, almost losing his grip on the slick leather of his shoes. Louis's attention focused on him is heady, and he feels it seeping into his sternum. 

"Louis," mumbles Harry. "Be nice. Offer him a lounge chair and a glass of that Montrachet. We have a whole 'nother bottle at home."

The way Louis has been going through his per diem like water is blatantly apparent, now. "I'd love to join you," Niall says, rubbing his hands together. With a shuffle and a hop he finds one of the striped chairs that costs a few lira, so he drags it over, hunched and precariously gripping his shoes. He has no compunction with putting the chair on Simon's tab.

Once he's situated, he lets his eyes drift shut, the shade from Louis's umbrella keeping him from the beating sun. "Casper's making himself comfortable," he hears Louis say, an edge of sharpness to it. "You're so white, Niall. Grey, more like."

"It's just an undercoat," Niall says, eyes still closed. Harry laughs.

"What?" Louis asks, and Niall opens his eyes, looking over. Louis is propped up, facing Niall, curious smile on his face. 

"You know, a primer," Niall says. Harry laughs again, one arm stretched over his head. The underside of his bicep is pale white.

Louis laughs this time as well. "That's good. Harry likes that," he says fondly. "Because he's so white too." Harry is demonstrably tan and not at all as white as Niall, but perhaps he used to be pale, perhaps in the winter in someplace without so much sun and sand his burnish fades away and Louis's doesn't, and it's a joke between them. 

The soft bubbling of Italian voices and the rush of the tide blend into pleasant white noise, and the Montrachet is probably the best wine Niall's ever had. "You should come have tea with us tonight, Niall," Harry says languidly. 

"Yes, anytime," Louis says.

Niall's pulse slows again, his lungs expand with each wave. He doesn't open his eyes until he hears the slick squelch of suncream, and when he looks over, Harry is slathering it expertly on Louis's chest and arms. Louis looks put out but beautiful where his skin gleams with it. They don't speak at all; the conversation in their eyes is implicit. Niall should turn away and let them have their moment, but he doesn't. He watches.

*

Niall tips his Oxfords into Harry's large beach tote for the ride back to their villa, and he slips on Louis's sandals to wear instead. "He likes to go barefoot," Harry says with a shrug. "I always tell him he's going to get tetanus, but you've known him all of an hour and I'm sure you can see he just does what he wants."

Niall does see that, very clearly. Louis burns bright and his charisma is irresistible, and he utilises it every way he can. It doesn't seem that anyone knows he's a successful recording artist in America, or that they care. Similarly, no one seems to recognise Harry as anything other than Signor Styles, Signor Tomlinson's friend. "You're going to fall madly in love," Harry says. Niall's gaze snaps to Harry. "With the house," he adds. "The moment you lay eyes on it. I've got my own place in town but I can't bear to be there most of the time. The view is nothing like Louis's."

Ischia is beautiful, vibrant and sun-drenched. Girls in sundresses and tanned boys in fedoras run up and down the stone lanes, mopeds and net bags of produce and baskets of fresh bread and wine bottles everywhere. It's idyllic, exactly how Niall imagined it would look when he gazed over the railing of the ship at the expanse of cold grey ocean on the journey from America. A rusted old bus blasts past them, honking, and bikes careen around corners with a too-late chime of the handlebar bell, but to Niall it only adds charm to the atmosphere.

"How long have you been here?" Niall asks Louis as they amble up the path to the house. Niall can't see it yet, tucked behind a hill covered in lush olive trees. Harry's run up ahead.

"Ages," Louis says, looking over at Niall with a smile. It's not so sharp, now, and his face looks open and lovely like this. Wine has blurred the piercing blue of his eyes into something soft. "Harry's made two movies in that time."

"Italian ones?" Niall asks. "Anything I'd know?"

Louis shakes his head. "Probably not. They barely pay him, but he doesn't care. Does it for the art, you know." Louis says _art_ like he's saying something ridiculous.

Niall lets that lie, the threads weaving together between them in the silence. A songbird calls from a cage in the window up ahead, and Harry whistles back to it. Louis looks over at Niall, and Niall meets his eyes, smiling. Louis gives him a shove, just enough to get him tripping off the edge of the curb, so he has to stumble to catch himself. "You're alright, Neil," he says.

"It's Niall," Niall says, shuffling back into place next to Louis, curling his toes in Louis's sandals, rubbing them in the grit from the street.

"That's what I said, isn't it?" says Louis, and he slings an arm around Niall's waist, tugging him close enough that Niall can feel the gentle heat of Louis's side under his loose linen shirt.

*

Harry was not wrong about the house. Niall stops dead still on the path when it comes into view, and Louis bumps into his back with a muffled _oof_.

"Jesus," Niall says. "This is unbelievable."

Louis laughs and grabs Niall's wrist, towing him into the house. "It's like you're a weird child," he says. "Simple mick, never even been out of Ireland, have you?"

Niall bristles but covers it with a grin. "'Course I have. Told you I came here from LA, didn't I? Signed to your label and that."

"Right, right," Louis says, waving a hand like he hasn't even heard Niall at all. "Well this is the place. Simon found it for me, set me up here to work on the album."

"Does he know--" Niall starts, trailing off. He tilts his head meaningfully towards the window out onto the veranda where Harry's gone to see about watering the flower boxes. 

"Does he know what," Louis says, purposeful, mouth a flat line.

"Nothing! Nothing," Niall says, scooting away, peering around hallways and into vases. "This stuff is gorgeous. The furniture, everything. Was it like this already?"

"Harry has good taste," Louis says with a smirk, hissing the S and popping the T. Niall blushes.

"How about these?" Niall sits on the floor surrounded by several guitars on stands in one corner. There's an upright piano, as well--a make that Niall's never heard of. 

"No, those ones are mine," Louis says. "And the piano. You can try 'em if you like."

Niall plays a bit of one of Louis's songs, and Louis laughs, sitting down to play along on the piano. "You're not bad," he says. Niall's never felt better.

*

The next afternoon, Niall has his map out, guidebook pressed close to his nose as he tries to find his way to Louis's. He's near, he's sure of it, when he hears Louis's voice down the lane and the sputtering of his scooter. 

"Briana," Louis calls, and a girl in a crisp blue shirt dress at the top of the hill turns around, blonde hair in a long braid over her shoulder. 

"You're a tramp, Mr. Tomlinson," she says, and it sounds like she must be an ex-pat as well, maybe American. "I haven't seen you in weeks. Always running around with that other English boy."

"I've been looking for you!" Louis says, thick charm in his voice. He walks his scooter up to her, and she twirls a ringlet around her finger.

"I hate you," she says, laughing, climbing onto the back of the scooter, and Louis drives away with her, singing.

Niall watches, confused, glancing down at his map. Harry must be home by himself, then. He continues down the lane Louis came up.

Harry has a plate of fresh fruit to hand when Niall finds him in the back garden. "Alright?" Niall asks, and Harry jumps comically with an abortive shout.

"Jesus, Niall, you scared me," he says, laughing. "Make some noise, would you?"

"Sorry," Niall says. He grins, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Put a bell on me like a cat, that'll solve it." He sits next to Harry, eyeing a bunch of grapes. His stomach grumbles. 

"Go on then," Harry says, nodding his head towards the plate. "Didn't know cats liked grapes."

Niall pulls off a few and chomps them--delicious, of course. There's no shortage of perfect grapes here. He catches Harry's eye and tilts his head back, mouth open, until Harry cottons on and does the same. With a flick of his wrist, he tosses the grape in a perfect high arc, landing straight in Harry's mouth.

Harry laughs again, chewing with his mouth open. "Incredible scenes," he says.

"To be fair, I had a huge target," Niall says, laughing.

"Fuck you!" Harry smacks at him, still grinning, and pelts him with strawberries.

"No, those'll stain!" Niall howls, and retaliates.

"What have we here?" 

Niall turns abruptly, one of Harry's big hands still wrapped warm around his forearm, holding him at bay with a fistful of grapes. 

"Darling," Harry says, a hint of laughter still running through it. "Niall's dropped by for some lunch. Had to give him a proper welcome."

"I see that," Louis says, pinched. He rolls his shoulders. Niall lets the grapes drop to the table. Harry finally lets go of his arm and it feels like a loss. "Niall why don't you run inside and pour us some wine to have with lunch, hmm?"

Harry's brow is furrowed and he stands up abruptly. "Louis--"

"Might as well pull his weight if you're going to be the gracious hostess entertaining him, I say." Louis's voice is light but it bites at Niall's ankles all the same.

"No, I'll go," Harry says, holding a hand up to stave off any argument. "He doesn't know the wines anyway." Niall clenches his hand in a fist in his lap. 

"Harry's practically a sommelier," Louis says once Harry's gone inside. "A savant with wine, he is. Everyone should have one talent, I've always said." Niall's not sure if Louis meant the rude implication that acting, Harry's livelihood, was not a talent of his. He nods politely anyway. "What's your talent, Niall?"

The expectant pause seems designed for Niall to fall into, like Louis assumes he hasn't got a talent and couldn't even make one up. "I can play guitar, you know that one," Niall says. "And piano, drums. Most instruments, really, if I have a chance to mess about with them. Lying. Impersonating just about anyone, any accent."

"That's far more than one." He laughs. "Do me an impression right now, then."

"Who?"

"Anyone, I don't care. Make me laugh, since you're so good at making Harry laugh."

Everything gets very still in Niall's mind for a moment. An idea begins as a spark and fans into a flame in the span of seconds. He clears his throat and puts on Simon Cowell's imperious tone. " _We're having a devil of a time getting the next Louis Tomlinson record out. He needed some peace and quiet to write, wanted to do some recording on the Continent, says the sound from the studios there is unmatched._ " Louis drops down into a chair with an audible thump, transfixed. " _You're going to bring Louis Tomlinson back to me. Don't worry, you'll be well-compensated. And I'll set you up with a first-class ticket._ " 

"Holy fuck," Louis says. After a heavy silence, he starts laughing, eyes still wide in surprise. "I can't believe it, it's like he's fucking here at this table right now. Jesus, Horan, that's incredible." He pushes back from the table. "Harry! Haz, Christ, come 'ere. You've gotta hear this."

Harry comes bearing three glasses of a gently chilled white, and Niall does the voice for him. "I take it that's what Uncle Simon sounds like?" He seems vaguely amused but nothing like how beside himself Louis is.

"Fucking exactly the same." Louis is quiet for a moment then, visibly processing the actual content of what Niall said, not just the voice. Niall lets it happen, takes deep breaths. He and Harry are both watching Louis. "Like hell I'm going back to that bag of wind," he says. "Niall, you've gotta tell him. It's useless, the jig's up." He shoves a handful of grapes into his mouth and takes a gulp of the wine Harry offered. His eyes light up. "Or better yet--you could be a double agent. String him along and keep him running in circles so he'll stay off my case. He'll send you more money and we can use it, all of us."

Niall grins and pops a grape in his mouth.

*

"You should come to dinner with us, Niall." Louis is in a hammock on the stone patio a few days later, bright flowers bowing under their own weight, curling down towards him like he draws them with his breath. Niall is transfixed, and takes an absent sip of his wine. "Do you like jazz?"

"I love jazz," Niall says. He doesn't particularly care about jazz, but it hardly matters.

"There's this filthy little jazz club in Naples. I'm obsessed with it. Harry doesn't like going, says it's too loud. And he doesn't like it when I drink too much. Such a square. You'll come with me, won't you, Irish?" He looks hopeful, and when his eyes shine, he's beautiful.

"Damn right I will," Niall says, holding up his glass. The deep red of the wine clings a bit to the sides, the tears flowing down slowly. "Filthy drunk jazz sounds like some good craic to me."

Louis laughs, shaking his head. He gets up to put a record on, shimmying his way back to the hammock. His hips swivel. Louis catches Niall looking, but he doesn't stop. "Louis Armstrong, of course," he says. "Harry says he likes jazz, but he thinks Glenn Miller is jazz. What do you play, Niall?"

"Folky stuff, mostly," Niall says, stretching out in his patio chair. He's wearing his white Oxford shirt today, and it feels thick and rough against his pinked-up skin, too long in the heat of the day. "I sing some, too. Don't think I mentioned that earlier"

"Do you write your own?" Louis sounds softer, now. "Writing is the best part."

"Yeah," Niall says, with an honest sigh. "I write." At the heart of all of this is that leather portfolio of songs, each page a paper-thin slice of himself, shaved off and laid bare. It's still lost somewhere in LA, and he feels it like a lost limb now.

"Probably shit though, innit," Louis says, the softness breaking and Niall laughing with a scrape of effort as his fist clenches around the stem of his wineglass. He imagines writing with Louis, how good it would be. He wants to hear the unfinished album so badly.

"Is that what you're wearing?"

Niall looks down. "Of course, what else would I--"

"No, no," Louis says, spinning out of the hammock and somehow landing on his feet like a cat. "You can't wear your own clothes, they won't let us in. I'll sort you out." He tugs Niall towards what appears to be a guest room with an ensuite shower. "Get clean. Don't worry about the sand, Lucia will be here in the morning." Niall opens his mouth to ask who that is when Louis pops his head back in the doorway. "She's the maid. Full service. You know." He waggles his eyebrows, and Niall keeps his expression carefully neutral.

"Ha," he says, but Louis is already gone. Niall washes slowly, smells each of the bath products before rubbing them into his skin, every inch of him gradually more assimilated into this house, more like Louis. When he's done, he stands naked in front of the steamed-up full length mirror in the corner, eyeing the lobster cast of his pale chest, the limp hang of his bleached hair. His body is unripe, too frail, compared to the vibrancy and lushness of Italy, and of Louis. 

There's another top on the bed when Niall comes out, one of Louis's linen shirts. The fabric is luxe and soft, and with it there's a pair of navy shorts, lightweight but finely made. A pair of white leather boat shoes sits by the foot of the bed. There's a brush and some pomade in the top drawer of the dresser. When Niall puts his own boxers on under the shorts, it ruins the crisp line of them. He goes without, instead, and it puts a flush on his cheeks that looks like more sun.

"Alright, Neil," Louis says when Niall comes back downstairs, pushing up from where he was leaned over the back of the couch. He claps his hands together.

"It's N--" Niall starts.

"He's just taking the piss," Harry says, peering up over the back of the couch. He's still in his Jantzen swimsuit, long legs crossed and feet propped up on the opposite arm of the couch. His hair is up in a little bun now, though, and he looks like Audrey Hepburn in _Funny Face_. His lips are plump and kiss-red, and Louis's eyes glitter. "He knows you're called Niall, Niall."

Niall meets his gaze and smiles, but Harry's eyebrows are raised, like maybe he can tell Niall's fingertips are digging into his palm in his pocket.

"Let's go," Louis says, grabbing Niall by the arm and dragging him bodily out the door. Harry just turns back to his book.

*

It's a warm night in Naples. Twilight wraps around them and the lights in the harbour come alive, twinkling like stars caught in the net of the ocean. Niall feels pasted into a page in the middle of a novel, the story already in progress around him, without him. Louis tugs at his arm and brings him in. "You need to loosen up, mate," he says.

"I'm so loose," Niall says, sliding his glasses up on top of his head as if to prove his point. 

"So's your old lady," Louis says with a sharp laugh. Niall laughs too, suddenly and genuinely cheerful.

"I think you mean yours," Niall said, waggling his eyebrows like Louis had earlier in the doorway of the bathroom. Harry's near-naked langor scratches incessantly at the back of Niall's mind.

Louis shrugs. "He does what he wants." After a moment of comfortable quiet, he says, "You don't seem to have a problem with it." It's clear he doesn't mean Harry's lack of schedule. 

"It'd be hypocritical of me, wouldn't it," Niall says, eyes fixed on the white of his shoes in the burgeoning night. A band tightens around his chest and he slips the ragged edge of a fingernail into his mouth. He's never said anything like that before.

Louis doesn't say anything at all, just turns to walk backwards so he can look at Niall from a pace in front of him. "What a strange lad you are," he says, but there's a thread of something unexpectedly kind in it. His ring glints in the moonlight.

" _Vedi Napoli e poi muori_ ," Niall says, looking up towards the roofline and then to the sky. "See Naples and die, that's the saying. It's so famously beautiful, there's not meant to be any reason to keep living once you've been."

"Jesus," Louis says, rolling his eyes and pushing heavily at Niall's shoulder. "Why can't you tell me something I actually want to know, like where I can find some decent dope?" He turns back around and runs ahead, laughing, leaving Niall to jog in his wake all the way to the jazz club.

There isn't a sign, but there are dozens of people standing around, leather jackets and sheath dresses and slick dark hair under a cloud of smoke. The music filters out into the street, couples dancing even down at the corner, loose and happy with wine and hands in places Niall can't see them.

"Be nice to my friend Neil," Louis says in Italian to the man at the door. He's huge, all thick muscles and thick neck and thick chest hair. He's wearing a white vest with pronounced sweat stains, but his face is finely chiseled. His pecs twitch and Niall tries not to stare at him, mouth going dry.

"It's Niall," Niall says to the bouncer with a wave, craning his head around to keep looking even as Louis drags him into the dark heat of the club.

They drink too much and smoke too much. It burns Niall's throat raw but he can't feel it after the eighth grappa. Louis leans in to press the cherry of his cigarette to Niall's unlit one, their heads bent close together, hot breath shared between them. He smiles, eyes unfocused but bright when he looks at Niall. He smells like expensive aftershave and smoke and sweat, and the sharp lines of his face catch the low light thrown from the neon over the stage until he glows ethereal blue. "I love this place," Louis says, voice scratchy. "Nice not to have to come alone."

There are at least a half-dozen people who've come up to Louis since they got here--he must not have stayed alone for long all the other times he's been. "Signor Tomlinson!" one of the guys on the little step of a stage shouts. He calls something to Louis in Italian, and Niall can't make anything out over the din of the room, but Louis gets up with a laugh and a wave.

"Come on," he says, tugging Niall up with him.

"What--" Niall starts, anxiety clenching a hand around his chest. "No, I'll just sit and--"

"Fuck that," Louis says, dragging him along until Niall stumbles and kicks the lip of the stage painfully.

"Christ," Niall says, hopping onto it with a stagger.

"That's the spirit," Louis says, and pushes Niall down on the piano bench, taking a seat next to him. He plays song Niall doesn't know at all, but it seems simple enough, and even though Louis is singing in barely passable Italian, Niall can pick it up pretty well. He follows Louis's piano-playing, eyes tracking Louis's fine fingers, stained a bit from cigarettes. Before too long he jumps in, left hand at the far end, picking out notes to harmonize as best he can as Louis plays, and Louis looks over at him, surprised and pleased. 

When they finish, the club is all raucous howls and laughter and singing, everyone cheering for Louis. His voice is scratchy with drink and smoke but he sells it with his smile, the star quality shining out of him. 

A blonde woman whose attentions Louis has been ignoring sidles up to the stage and tugs and his arm. "You've got an admirer," Niall says.

"Just one?" Louis says, one hand cupping Niall's chin, fingers and thumb squeezing at his cheeks. He's getting up, though, nodding when she speaks to him in Italian.

"You can't just leave me--" Niall starts, but Louis shrugs and smiles innocently, ducking around a curtain with the girl. The room shouts and seethes with movement Niall can't focus on. "Uh," he says, belly a knot, pits sweating enough that he can feel a drip sliding towards his waistband.

"Play something," a man says in thickly-accented English, not aggressively. The energy is ratcheting down without Louis here, less frantic, less wild. But there are still so many eyes on Niall.

"I don't--uh. What do you want to hear?" Niall asks, sliding to the middle of the piano bench and stretching his fingers along the keys. He'd prefer a guitar, but maybe this could work. 

"Something good," a woman says in Italian, and laughs. Niall laughs too, and feels the snap of the connection forming with the audience. There's a glass of grappa on the lid. He didn't see anyone put it there, but it wasn't there before. He takes a swig, and the woman whistles.

"Alright, then," he says, and starts playing one of his own songs. He sings, and it's sweet and wistful, about longing and love. Louis isn't in the room, but it feels sort of like he is. Shades of inevitability colour the melody.

Niall gets absorbed in the music, in the way each note hangs and is heard and held by each individual person in the audience. By the time he's done, he's in a daze. 

"What was that?" Louis asks. His voice is soft, and Niall think he's imagined it at first. The neon light washes Louis's entire face in blue, trickles blue down into the white fold of his collar, pours blue over his collar bones.

"Just a doodle, I guess," Niall says, shrugging, but his breath feels warm and still in his lungs. Louis sits down next to him on the piano bench, and Niall presses their upper arms together. Louis smells like perfume, now, and the skin around his lips is rubbed  
pink.

"Maybe I should be worried about my job," Louis says, and his smile isn't sharp, this time. He bangs out a quick vaudeville exit tune and gets up, tugging Niall along with him, waving to the smoky room. They lose all track of time until the last stragglers in the club are finally turned out. Niall catches the bouncer's eyes before Louis ushers him out onto the street. The night is tinged with morning now, still warm and salty-damp. "Where are you staying?"

"Oh," Niall says, mind racing. He doesn't ever want Louis to see his grotty hotel room, his folders from the label, his stacks of Louis's records, but he can't think of any excuses. "They're putting me up in the usual place."

"It's a fucking shithole," Louis says, gruff. "You should come stay with me when we get back."

"Tonight?"

"Harry'll be back at his. We'll have a nightcap."

"Yeah," Niall says, heart tripping. "That'd be swell." He steals Louis's cigarette and takes a drag, projecting as much apathy as possible. "I'd kill for another drink."

Harry's not at his own place. He's up when they get back, curled around a crystal glass of something dark at the wrought iron table on the balcony looking out over the driveway. His sunglasses are on top of his head even in the twilight, holding his hair back like a headband. "Alright?" Louis calls, waving up at him. The lingering smell of perfume wafts subtly from Louis's body and Niall feels a sick twist in his belly. Louis trips over the loose gravel in the driveway, one arm hooking painfully over Niall's shoulder to keep himself upright. Niall shouts, and it turns into a self-conscious laugh in his throat.

"Hooligans," Harry says, pushing his hair back with an idle hand. His movements are choppy, and his eyes glint in the darkness. There's a strange cast to his features, something drawn and vacant. 

"Come on," Louis says. Niall stands for a moment outside the front door, looking up at Harry, though he's engrossed in a book in his lap and doesn't seem to see Niall at all anymore.

Niall trips after Louis when the silence presses in too heavily on his ears. He's upstairs--his footsteps are light but audible through the ceiling. "How about that nightcap?" Niall says, poking his head in Louis's room. The bed is a musky muddle of sheets and the bathtub is full in the steamless en suite. Louis doesn't bother to drain it, but he bends over the marble vanity table by the wall, fiddling with something metallic. The light washes him out, turns the rich whites greenish. 

"Here's your nightcap, then," he says, holding his hand out, waggling his eyebrows. "Harry's got a head start." It takes Niall a moment to see the small pile of white sitting primly on the flat skin under the seam between Louis's thumb and index finger. He doesn't know what it is, but he has a guess. A drink would be so good, to wet his dry mouth. He tips forward with a finger pressed firmly to one side of his nose instead. His heart flutters anxiously, but he smiles. His teeth look bright in the wan light, reflected in the mirror behind Louis as white as the powder. 

"Down the hatch," he says, and sniffs up the small heap. 

"Thatta boy," Louis says, licking his tongue slowly over his gums, eyes hard and unblinking on Niall. They're sagging towards each other, drawn by the weight of the darkness and the dip where the cocaine used to be. A crackle passes between their lips, and Niall swallows against the acrid sting in the back of his throat. The lingering taste like a chewed up Paracetamol coats his tongue. If Louis kissed him, he'd taste it, too. Niall looks away first, heat pulling down inside him.

"Could still use a drink, though," he murmurs. Louis cocks an eyebrow up and presses his hand to Niall's sternum.

"Stay put. I'll get you one," he says, and Niall would be surprised by his courtesy, but the weight of Louis's hand is slotted against him like an ulterior motive.

Harry comes inside and the three of them splay across the couches and chairs in the sitting room like cats. A restlessness is growing inside Niall's bones, his nerves twitching, everything taking on a hard-edged diamond cast. "Louis," Harry says, just on the verge of simpering. "Bedtime, don't you think?"

"How could you be tired?" Niall says, running his tongue over his gums. He wants to go dancing, now, wishes they were back at the club.

"He's not tired," Louis says, smug, and Niall blushes straight down to his chest. "Haz, we wouldn't want to leave Nialler out here all lonely." He takes one of Harry's hands, slipping his fingers between Harry's knuckles, obvious in his meaning.

Harry's gaze tracks between the two of them, and Niall can't read his face. "You're being very friendly all of a sudden," Harry says to Louis in a stage whisper. The way he holds his shoulders is stiff and weird, thrown into stark relief for Niall by the way everything seems like a film he's watching rather than something actually happening to him.

"You always tell me to be nicer to people," Louis says, sitting up and reaching over to put his hands on Harry's bare shoulders, kneading and rubbing. Harry groans, head lolling back. Louis drags his fingers down Harry's spine. "I can be so nice."

"Alright," Harry says, standing up so quickly Niall doesn't even see it happen. He just stares with wide eyes, snapping into his own body with a jolt when Louis puts a hand on his head, the fingers that were just trailing down Harry's body now tucked in Niall's hair.

"C'mon then," he says, and Niall follows them both on autopilot. The bed is musky and rumpled just like it was earlier. Niall stands inside the door, watching as Harry sits on the edge, knees splayed, Louis coming to stand between them with his hands on Harry's smooth jaw. They kiss, backlit by the moon, as idyllic as the cobblestone streets lined with flower boxes and Vespas. Breaths and lips are the only sounds in the heavy silence of the house. 

Niall's getting hard in his borrowed shorts, and he thinks to undo the flies and push them down just enough that there won't be a wet spot. 

"Is he just going to watch?" Harry asks breathily, one big hand around the back of Louis's neck, the words slurred between their mouths pressed together.

"Get over here," Louis says, pinning Niall with his sudden gaze, a beetle on a card. Niall covers his cock with a hand, kneeling on the foot of the bed, shorts pulled tight between his spreading thighs. "Have you done this before?" Niall shakes his head, and Louis looks smug, obviously unsurprised. He leans in and kisses him deep, tongue stroking into his mouth at the same time that Harry pulls his hand away, fingers curling around Niall's dick.

Niall shakes, overwhelmed, every sense heightened and his heart thumping dangerously hard in his chest. His mouth still tastes medicinal, but with Louis kissing him it's darker, better. Someone's got a thumb pressed to Niall's pulse in his neck, and someone's hand is pushing up under the tail of his shirt, brushing over the soft of his belly. Niall sucks in, clenching his abdominals, and Louis makes a frustrated sound. "If you don't relax we're not going to fuck you," Harry says, barely more than a mumble.

"Now who needs to be nicer," Louis says.

Harry starts unbuttoning Niall's shirt, warm hands big and recognisable now. He pushes it off, down Niall's back, and manhandles him enough to get his shorts and underwear off. Niall feels small like that, delicate almost. He's embarrassed about how skinny and slight he is but his cheeks flush, too, and his dick flexes, messy and desperate with no one touching it, arcing wetly towards Niall's bare stomach.

Louis's ring is pushing into the muscles of his shoulders, and his fingers are carding through Niall's hair. His mouth is hot and wet and wicked as he keeps kissing him, sucking on his tongue, teasing, never letting Niall fall into a comfortable rhythm, always making him chase Louis. When Louis pulls back a string of spit snaps between their mouths, clinging to Niall's chin. Louis's lips gleam in the moonlight spilling in the window, and he smirks, pointed canines white in the dark. "Lie down," he says, and before Niall can move, Harry's hand is spanning his chest, pushing him down into the sheets, a bare knee knocking Niall's thighs apart so he's splayed out, naked and trembling. "Cold?" Louis asks, but he knows the answer.

Niall shakes his head, and Harry laughs, a soft, airy huff, not unkind. He's on his knees, body long and toned and perfect. Niall blinks at Harry's cock, so thick, long and heavy enough that it pulls down towards the bed even though he's intensely hard. Niall's breath is loud in his ears and he makes an involuntary noise in the back of his throat, mouth filling with spit. "Harry," Louis says, eyes flicking up to Niall's face, and Niall doesn't know what that means but Harry must. He crawls up the bed and Niall watches in slow motion how each muscle shifts, how he balances his weight as he straddles Niall's chest easily, thighs parting as he looks down. He has a hand wrapped around the base of his cock so it doesn't bob with his movements, but it doesn't stop the viscous drip of precome from landing with a pat on Niall's collarbone, shining string of it obscene in the dark. "Suck him," Louis says, and runs his hands over Niall's shins and up to his thighs, leaning to the side so he can see around Harry's hip. "That dick tastes so good. Feels so good pushing into your throat. Lips stretching around it. Gagging on it. I want to hear you choking on it. Suck him, Niall."

Niall's lips part and his cheeks are so hot. He stares up at Harry's shadowed face rather than at his cock, and Harry's got his lower lip caught between his teeth and his eyes are shining as he looks down at Niall. "Good, that's good," he says. "Lovely blush on you. Look at you. Mouth watering for it. You're fairly glowing, Niall. Pink and silver. Maybe it's good you haven't tanned. Made for being seen like this instead."

Harry's voice is soft and ragged and it feels too big for Niall to hear; it's too much. Like Harry's speaking to someone else. Niall is just a spectator. The sweaty tang of Harry's cock pressing against his lips doesn't let him watch, though. He groans through his closed mouth as Harry feeds him the fat head of his dick, slicked with precome and body-hot. Harry presses a thumb insistently at the corner of Niall's mouth until Niall opens his lips for it, the wet skin-slick sound of it just audible under Louis's murmuring. 

"That's it," he says, and fingers squeeze and scratch at the soft insides of Niall's thighs. His hips twitch against the bed and Louis's hands slide farther up, rubbing at kneading at the vulnerable creases at his groin, the tight hang of his balls. Niall's tongue is too big for his mouth, nowhere for it to go with the heavy press of Harry's cock towards his throat. He makes helpless sounds, slurping and groaning as he tries to accommodate it even with Harry going slowly. It's filthy and perverse, and it's lighting him up inside, every inch of his skin straining for touch, sensation enfolding him and whipping his heart into a frenzy. His own dick is straining and twitching in Louis's hand, hot like a brand, his brain scrambling to connect it with the cock in his throat, trying to find a rhythm, something that makes sense in the tangle of limbs and tastes and heartbeats. 

Niall's thighs push farther apart and his back bows up as he rocks his hips up into Louis's hand, the sides of his chest rubbing against the coarse hair of Harry's thighs. He wants to be closer, wants more. He swallows around Harry's cock and breathes erratically through his nose, drool leaking from the corners of his mouth as Harry holds his jaw and starts pulling out and pushing back in, slowly but inexorably. "You're such a mess," Harry says, but not unkindly. "Hot and so fucking wet around me. Trying so hard. God you're desperate for it, aren't you? Can't believe you've never had a cock before."

Niall's raw and exposed, eyes fluttering shut, but he can't turn away, pinned in place by heat and bodies and the heavy girth of Harry's cock in his mouth. He grunts when he feels Louis's fingers, cold and slick, pressing up behind his balls, sliding along the crease of his perineum, knuckling into it until Niall's thighs spread apart more, slutty and open. His eyes pop open and he moans when Louis's fingertips push at his hole, trying to draw his legs closed again, but he can't, Louis's body warm and dense between them now. The sounds he makes are muffled by Harry's cock, and Harry throws his head back, hair tumbling around his shoulders and hands sliding up to brace himself on the headboard. The vibrations from Niall's abortive keening must be tangible through his cock and hips. 

Louis slides a finger into Niall, slowly breeching him, twisting as he pulls out again, screwing back in. There's an ache about it, but nothing Niall can focus on as he tries to breathe and suck at the same time, as his eyes water, as he holds himself back from bucking his hips or crying out or falling to ash under Harry and Louis's bodies. Niall tries not to clench down, and Louis starts to crook his finger, stroking and petting at Niall's insides as Harry puts a hand down to stroke and pet at his sweaty hair. Harry's fingers trail down to Niall's distended cheeks, pushing from the outside against the hard mass of his dick on the inside. Niall feels thin and insubstantial, barely containing the two of them in the membrane of his body.

Louis does something that presses Niall open wider--another finger, another twisting push, pitting Niall, hollowing him out to make room for more heat, more need. Niall almost chokes, and instead of pulling out, Harry puts a hand to his throat, feeling the spasm of muscle with a soft smile on his face. "Good boy," he says sweetly, eyes dark and heavy-lidded.

Niall doesn't even have a chance to feel empty for a second before Louis's cock is finally pushing at his hole. Some of Louis's fingers are still inside him, prying him apart, and as Louis sinks deeper, he doesn't pull them out. Niall groans, aching with the fullness, the stretch. Everything else goes numb but the parts of him that are being used, spent. He's on fire where Louis and Harry penetrate him, and everything else is static. 

In order to move, Louis has to pull out all but one finger--he leaves the last in, crooked like it was before, his hot dick rubbing against it, pushing it into Niall's pelvis. Louis rocks at first, range of motion limited by how tight Niall is, how strung-out and tense with pressure. 

"Fuck him," Harry murmurs. "Really fuck him." He tightens his hand around Niall's throat. Niall doesn't even realise he can't breathe until his vision starts to swim, and Harry loosens his grip just then, as if he could tell, as if he could see what Niall was seeing. 

Niall swallows convulsively around Harry's cock, his cry muffled as Louis starts fucking into him properly. It's jarring, knocking his body up the mattress, forcing Louis's finger to dig into Niall's prostate and Harry's dick down his throat at the same time. "This feels unbelievable," Louis pants, hips pistoning. It's relentless, stripping every single feeling out of Niall's nerve endings at once, filling him to bursting, wringing him through. He's a sloppy, noisy mess, and he might die of it, might die of there being none of himself left in his own body. 

With a gurgling sob, he comes. It takes him by surprise, every feeling so intense, driving him to such complete distraction that he didn't realise it was happening. No one is touching his dick, it's just flexing and twitching against Niall's stomach, bouncing with Louis's thrusts as it spurts globs of come all over his skin, hot and clinging. Niall moans, would probably be wailing if Harry weren't fucking his noises back down his throat. His eyes stream tears and he can't stop coming, can't stop the convulsion of his muscles and the clenching of his hole around Louis's relentless pounding. He pulls his finger out and Niall barely feels it, grips Niall's hips with both hands, saying something to Harry that Niall can't even hear over the rushing in his ears. He can't see, there's nothing but the bone-deep pull in his body, the need to empty himself out after being so full. 

Harry pulls mostly out of his throat once Niall's ensconced numbly in aftershocks. "Keep this in your mouth," Harry says, and Niall can't even muster up the energy to reply. He opens his eyes enough to see Harry throw his head back, hair wild, then look down at Niall's face as he creams Niall's mouth. The fat head of his cock is hot on Niall's tongue, but the come is hotter, viscous wads of it on the roof of his mouth, trickling down his throat. He barely even gags, just looking up at Harry with wet eyes. "Yeah, just like that," Harry says, and pulls his cock out from between Niall's lips with a wet pop. The last rope of come lands across Niall's lips and spatters over his cheek when Louis fucks him hard enough to jolt him mid-stream.

Harry rubs the come over Niall's used lips with incongruously gentle fingers, but his eyes stray to Louis after just a moment. Niall looks down his own body and sees Louis's eyes closed, bliss written on his face. "C'mon," Harry murmurs, "let me see you," and that's all it takes for Louis to lose it.

He doesn't make any noise, just ragged inhales and exhales. His fingers dig so tight into Niall's hips that Niall wants to pull away, but Louis's cock is thick and hot and pumping inside him, pinning him there as Louis fills him up. 

Finally Louis lets go. The blood rushing to Niall's skin where his hands were makes it hurt even more, but it's a deep, good kind of hurt, like the thudding, basal pain in his hole when Louis finally pulls out. Niall's lost all sense of his own body beyond that and thoughts are difficult, amorphous things. He may still be crying. Consciousness is slippery, and the bed is soft around him, Harry's hands stroking through his hair.

"Such a slut," Louis says, the corner of his mouth quirked up as he pats Niall's thigh like he just won at cards or aced an exam. "Who'd have thought." 

*

He wakes to the incessant clack-clacking of Louis's fingers on a typewriter right by Niall's head. He feels like a rumpled mess, Louis tucked up at a desk looking fresh-faced and shining like they hadn't put away half the bar and the chemist's the night before. Niall's lungs are tight and uncomfortable from the idiotic smoking at best and from who knows what drugs at worst, and his head pounds, hair every which way, he's sure.

"Met a charming idiot called Niall Horan," Louis says as he types, awkward strokes with pauses as he hunts for the letters. "He says he's going to haunt me until I agree to go back to LA with him." Niall pops his head up, bleary-eyed. "Afternoon," Louis says gently, passing Niall his glasses.

"What are--do you always type your letters?" Niall says, taking in the lay of the desk. 

"I can barely write, can't spell," Louis says, laughing. "Whole education was a complete waste." He's not wrong. Niall can see several spelling mistakes and typos already, and he's hungover and reading the letter upside down. "Your room's over there, by the way," Louis says, smirking at Niall's disheveled appearance. "Lucia made up the bed for you." Niall's eyes widen. "Don't worry, she doesn't care. Probably nothing she hasn't figured out at this point."

Niall tries to relax, though he feels wrung out. "I can't thank you enough, L--"

"Shut up," Louis says fondly, shaking his head. "Don't mention it. And anyway, you're going to be a double agent now. I need you." He takes a thoughtful pause, eyes gleaming. "What would you say to buying a car with Simon's money?"

"Don't do it, Niall," Harry says, strolling in with a smile. "Louis's busted every car he's ever touched. What we really need is an icebox--agree with me and I'll suck your cock."

"I absolutely agree with Harry," Niall says, half scandalised hearing that in the light of day, but grinning cheekily at Louis.

"The fuck he will," Louis murmurs and shakes his head, giving Niall a small shove. It's hot where the whorls of his fingers touch Niall's pink shoulders. Everything fades out of focus as nausea rises up inside Niall, the hangover choking him.

It's all he can do to drag himself to the shower, cranking it cold to snap himself back to reality. His thoughts are still fuzzy, though, as he reaches for what he can remember of last night. He's sore, deeply and in a way he's never felt before. It seems strange and secret and isolating. When he steps out onto the bath mat, the house is warm enough that he's barely shivering, and he feels deprived, like the convulsions in his muscles and the click of his bones would've made everything feel more real.

There's no one left downstairs when Niall manages to get down there, but the doors and windows are open. Harry's motorbike is still in the driveway. Niall helps himself to espresso and holds it gingerly as he picks his way through the garden path to the low stone wall out back. The sea is placid and beautiful, just stirred into little white caps by the warm breeze. The beach isn't too crowded. He squints, looking for Harry and Louis, but they'd be impossible to find in the pinpricks of tanned bodies scattered all over the sand, under the bright striped umbrellas, bobbing in the sea. Louis's boat is still floating just offshore, but it looks empty.

He goes back inside, eye caught by a glint on the kitchen counter. Louis has left his watch and his money clip. Niall slides on the watch, fingers tracing around the lines of the money clip when he hears laughter filtering up from the hillside. He slips the watch off and goes back out to the patio. Louis and Harry are coming up a stone path so worn, Niall hadn't even noticed it before. They're looking where they're stepping for the most part, and Niall tucks himself back on the patio so they can't see him. "How long do you think you'll let it go on?" Harry's saying.

Louis shrugs. "Do you care? I thought you liked him."

"I do," Harry says, pouting.

"You like everybody," Louis says. 

Niall clears his throat and walks purposefully into view on the patio just as Louis hops over the stone wall, dropping Harry's hand and picking up a guitar propped against the table.

Harry makes a fist, knuckles white for a moment before he slips his hand into the pocket of his shorts. "Thought you might have drowned in the bath," Harry says, eyes lambent, catching the gold of nearly-setting sun.

"Not used to our level of athleticism," Louis says, waggling his eyebrows. He starts picking out a lovely little tune, and Niall is drawn to it immediately. 

"I have to be honest," Niall says, voice creaky, "I don't remember a hell of a lot." 

Louis stops playing, clutches his chest dramatically. "Impossible," he says. "We're fucking unforgettable."

They go to the trattoria down the road for dinner, joined by a half-dozen other Italians. They all look at Niall with affable confusion, but by the third bottle of wine, he's asking Helene about her sister in Prague and Marco has his arm over the back of Niall's chair. 

Harry goes up to get another bottle of wine and Briana, the American Niall saw with Louis on his second day, slips a foot surreptitiously up Louis's calf. Niall wouldn't have noticed except that he was trying to figure out if Clemenza and Antonio were touching each other's thighs under the table (they were) and the hint of movement caught his eye. 

He looks up, and Louis's face is impassive when he slides his foot over Briana's in return, the briny smell of Louis's shoes suddenly stronger now that he's slipped his foot out. Niall catches the flicker of his eyes, the self-conscious twist of Briana's hand in her hair. When Harry comes back with a bottle of Lacryma Christi and a pot of mussels, Louis looks up at him with stars in his eyes and it's as if none of it ever happened.

As Louis shucks mussels and twirls a finger around the top of his wine glass, the glint of his ring is mesmerising. "That's a brilliant ring," Niall says. 

Harry laughs, a hand tight in the hair at the back of Louis's neck. "Did you hear that," he says. "Did you hear that!" 

Louis rolls his eyes, but he's smiling. "I had to swear to God and my mother on pain of death never to take it off," he says.

"I bought it for him in Naples," Harry says, tracing it with a long finger. "Quite the deal I got on it."

"I hope it wasn't _cheap_ , dearest," Louis says, mocking.

"Oh it was," Harry says, smirking.

Louis ends the night playing piano while Clemenza sings, and he's never looked happier or more at peace. Niall wishes painfully that he were up there with Louis instead.

*

The next day, Niall is sat at Harry's script-reading table on the verandah in a pool of sunlight when Louis comes up the steps with a net bag full of lemons and clinking bottles -- olive oil or alcohol or both. "Do you know how to sail?" 

Niall pushes his sunnies up his nose, squinting as he looks up at Louis's stark silhouette. He left his usual glasses on his nightstand.

Niall's skin feels pleasantly cooler where Louis's shadow falls. He didn't realise how high and hot the sun had gotten. He caps his pen. "What do you think, Lou?" He asks, a self-deprecating smile curling around his teeth. He'd been writing a song, the melody expanding to fill every crevice of his thoughts, and he comes back to himself in fits and starts, Louis's face a guide.

"I think you wouldn't even know the difference between truffles and pig shit if it weren't for me. You're kind of a bumpkin."

"Thanks," Niall says, brightly, as if it were a real compliment. That always makes Louis scowl, and he loves it. "Are you going to teach me to sail?"

"Fuck no," Louis says, laughing, and Niall keeps smiling even though it rubs over something raw in him. He rolls up the _Hit Parader_ next to him and thwaps Louis in the chest with shaking hands. Louis raises his arms, innocent. "I am going to take you sailing, though, ungrateful prick. You can help."

"What about Harry?" Niall says, heart thumping.

"He's coming too." Louis sounds suspicious, or maybe proprietary. 

Niall shrugs, twisting the magazine in his hands. He slants Louis a conspiratorial look. "Guess we won't be listening to my Chet Baker on the turntable in the galley then."

"Bring it anyway," Louis says. His lips are right by Niall's ear in a show of secrecy, though he's barely lowered his voice. Niall swallows thickly and taps his pen against his notepad with the beat of his pulse. He just nods, trying not to look strained. Louis smells like salt and bodies.

Niall does bring it -- and several of his other records as well, mostly torch songs that Harry would like. They've got Lena Horne singing about stormy weather in the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea, not a cloud in the sky, the sun bathing them in white and gold like they'd sailed straight to the gates of heaven. 

Water laps at the boat out of time with the music. Harry's got one foot dangling in, his impossibly tiny swim trunks as good as invisible tucked between the burnished expanses of his thigh and his hip. Niall twists the line tighter around his hand until it chafes red marks across his hands. They're a bit darker now, less the shell pink of the day he got here. 

"Do you know how to sail, Harry?" he asks. He kicks off the boat shoes Louis gave him, flexing his still-white insteps in the sun. He can feel Louis's eyes on him, and it's a heady feeling, considering Louis has the option of looking at Harry.

"Mermaids don't sail," Harry says, looking back over his shoulder at Niall with a cheeky squint.

"Let me make you a martini," Niall says. "Mermaids must drink those."

"Nope," Harry says, laughing. "You booze you lose." He punctuates it with a long pull from a green glass bottle of mineral water.

"Can't take him anywhere." Louis sighs. "He goes through phases."

"It's not a phase," Harry says, petulant.

"Nothing shameful about a phase." Niall pushes his sunglasses up his nose. "I'm having a phase right now."

Louis snorts. "I'll say." Niall grips his hands tight around the rope. "Where to next, do you think?"

"Venice," Niall says, looking out at the vast horizon. "I'd love to see Venice." He'd read a book once that had both ignited and shamed him, and which made him long for the gentle rocking of a gondola. "And Rome too," Niall says. "I want to have a whole map covered in pushpins, every place I've been." Niall falls into silent contemplation for a moment. He's seen more of the world recently than he ever thought he would back home in Mullingar. The map could be real, someday.

"How 'bout you come take the tiller, lad? Gimme a bit of a rest. It's the least you can do with my jailers both acting as your travel agents and footing the bill."

Niall scrambles over the rigging to take over from Louis. He slides his sunglasses up into his hair, holding it back like a headband. Niall watches Louis pull Harry up by the arm, twirling him around for a moment before towing him below deck. Niall's stuck guiding the boat, the sails snapping full with a sudden gust. He bites at a nail and stares holes into the door of the stairs down to the cabin. There's a mirror stuck to the inside of the door -- small and flecked liberally with water spots, but big enough to make out Harry sat on the counter with swimming trunks dangling lifelessly from one ankle, Louis tucked between his thighs.

The creaking of the boat in the waves and the groaning of the canvas in the wind masks the creaking and groaning from below-deck, but Niall can see enough in the mirror to imagine what it must sound like. He looks away for a while, focusing on the horizon, the ripples of the water, the sun on the wave caps, but his eyes always drag back to the slick slide of bodies in the mirror, door swaying with the pitch of the boat. First a foot, then a slack red mouth, then a hip, thumping and smacking. The wind stills and he hears a grunt and a gasping oh. 

It's another half an hour before Harry's back above deck, tousled and smug. Louis grins when he stands in the stairwell, one hand gripping the damned open door. He's wearing different swim trunks, now. "Alright?" he asks Niall, and there's something sharp in it. 

Niall nods awkwardly and wrestles with the boat, not sure how to play it. He hates himself for letting things be this way, for how ravenously he gobbles up every scrap. Louis clambers up onto the prow, back to Niall and the hot sun. "Pathetic," Niall spits, sibilants carried off in the wind. He could mean himself or Louis; it's all the same.

*

Niall loves Rome the moment he sets foot in it. It's beautiful and bustling and the elaborate classical and baroque architecture crumbling into modernity is a constant presence no matter where they go. Ischia is breathtaking of course, but Niall feels Rome tugging at him a different way. He wants to sight-see, he wants to be part of the people here, he wants to soak in the history and the lives of everyone who has come before. 

That he's here with Louis alone is even better. After the boat trip, Louis was appalled Niall had never been and Harry didn't have the time to come along. No one else vying for Louis's attention, no one for Louis to show off for but Niall. It's the start of something, Niall can feel it through every inch of himself. This is how it's meant to be.

"What's that?" Louis asks idly, nodding at the envelope clutched in Niall's hand.

"It's from Simon," Niall says. "I haven't opened it yet."

Louis laughs. "Read it to me," he says. 

Niall tears the top of the envelope roughly with a finger. He hasn't enough fingernail to slit it, always biting at them no matter how stringently he tries to stop. "Dear Mr. Horan," he starts, mumbling through the longer bits as he scans the letter. "Blah blah, significant period of time, etcetera, more than enough compensation, no evidence of efficacy. Hmm."

"Sum it up," Louis says, bored already.

"He's impatient." Niall shrugs, giving Louis a conspiratorial smile. 

Louis looks at him a long moment, then shrugs back. "Your outfit is atrocious," he says, finally smiling. "I can't be seen with you."

Niall rolls his eyes. "My outfit is fine."

"You look like someone's grandfather. We should go shopping later so I'm not cast out by everyone I know." Niall's blushing but he loves it just the same, the kind of teasing where it feels like Louis's light is shining just on him. Louis picking out clothes for him to wear would be a dream.

They have rooms at Hotel d'Inghilterra, and it's gilded and plush and everything Niall would've hoped for. Theirs is a penthouse suite, and it's so huge their voices echo when they call across to each other from their beds. "I'm taking a bath," Louis says, stretching, Niall following the bowed line of his body. 

"I'll work on figuring out what I want to see," Niall says, tapping his guidebook. "And I'm calling up for some tea." 

"Boring," says Louis, disappearing into the bathroom. "Get us wine. And cigars."

Niall orders them the second-most expensive bottle on the wine list, since he has no idea what he's looking at, and asks for some sigari Toscano, too. There's a crystal ashtray next to the phone.

"Niall," Louis calls, and Niall immediately jumps up. "Come here."

"Need something?" Niall asks, hesitating.

"Just come here." Niall brings a glass of the wine just so he has something to do with his hands.

Louis is in the bath, steam wafting gently from the surface of the water. It's clear enough that Niall can see the amorphous shape of his body refracting through. Louis pulls something over the sides of the tub. It's a tray, almost--a table that sits across the top of the tub. It hides his hips and thighs from view. Niall sets the glass of wine down on it, and Louis looks up at him with steam-limp hair, smiling. "It's your move," he says.

Next to a pad of paper and a pen there's a game of English draughts laid out on the table, Louis having made the first move. He's the black pieces. Niall fetches a chair and pulls it up flush with the tub. He looks resolutely at the board instead of at the soft pink-brown of Louis's chest, the damp curls of his sparse chest hair, the curve of his shoulder into the dark hollow of his armpit. "I'm rubbish at draughts," Niall says.

"Well I don't know how to play chess," Louis says. "So we're playing English draughts. Which, by the way, no one is bad at. It's this or noughts and crosses."

Niall moves one of his pieces. Louis moves one of his. It's a peaceful back-and-forth, the quiet swishing of the water around Louis's body every time he moves a soothing tickle underlying the heavy, wet heat of the bathroom. It's hard to forget Louis's hands inside Niall's body. It's hard to forget his breath on Niall's mouth, the taste of his tongue. Niall wants to slip their legs together. He wants to grip Louis's sides, and nuzzle into the crook of his neck. He wants to feel wanted.

"You're right, you are rubbish at draughts," Louis murmurs, jumping three of Niall's pieces in a row. Niall wasn't paying attention at all, tonguing at the backs of his teeth and imagining what Louis's cock would taste like underwater instead. He shrugs and trails his hand closer to the surface of the water over the edge of the tub, goosebumps prickling on his arms. His fingertips graze a ripple when Louis shifts. Niall dips them the rest of the way in, paddling first one finger then the next in a gentle underwater wave. Louis doesn't say anything at all, doesn't look at Niall's hand.

Niall is wearing the robe that was spread out on his bed when he walked into his room and a pair of shorts. The tips of his nipples chafe against the inside of the robe, even though it's lushly soft. "I'm cold," he says. It's not even remotely cold in the bathroom. Heat still seeps into the air from the water. "Can I get in?"

Louis looks at him with sharp eyes. "No," he says, punctuated by the click of his piece. There's a long, painful silence.

"I meant after you were finished," Niall murmurs, barely audible, lungs tight, staring at the back of his hand. He's withering, shins crossed tight under the rung of his chair until the balls of his ankles knock and press together painfully. Louis gives him a vaguely disgusted look. The pen on the tray glints. "Did you know I can analyse handwriting?" he says, louder this time, a hail Mary pass to distract Louis from Niall's humiliation. "You should write something and I'll tell you what it means about you."

Louis laughs, surveying the board for his next move. "You already know what I'm like." The painful tension dissipates.

"Then we'll see if it's right or not," Niall says. Louis makes a bad move, and Niall's able to capture two of his pieces and get kinged, all in one go. He's thinking about the letter from Simon, about the money, about walking a tightrope suspended over the Atlantic.

"Fuck, fine," Louis says, laughing as Niall turns his piece, but with a sharpness. "What should I write?" 

"The lyrics to one of your songs, maybe?" 

Louis writes _it's not over 'til your dying breath_ three times on a piece of the hotel stationery, the first two scribbled out. "It looks weird," he says, nose crinkled in distaste. 

"It's fine," Niall says. "Do your signature too." Louis writes _Louis_ in a childish half-script with a smiling face next to it. "Not like that," Niall says, laughing. "Your real signature." Louis's official signature is even more illegible. He slides the piece of paper over to Niall. It's damp from steam and the ink is starting to feather, but Niall looks at it carefully.

"Intense," Niall says, "and impulsive." He can't really analyse handwriting at all, but Louis is perked up and watching him intently, so he keeps going. "The letters are small with hardly any space in the loops," he says. "That means you have secrets." He gives Louis a lingering look. Louis frowns and tips his head back, breaking eye-contact to stare at the vaulted ceiling.

"I'm an open book," he says. "And I'm a prune. Don't soak in my filth after I'm out, have some decency."

Niall looks away when Louis stands up, but the full-length mirror propped in the corner reflects Louis's compact body back at him anyway. Louis's eyes pierce him for a mortifying second before Niall can look at the ground, and he's stripped raw. It doesn't feel like he has any decency when he reaches in to drain Louis's bath. 

*

"You can't ski, can you?" Louis asks. He sips at his espresso. They're sitting at a cafe in Piazza Navona, al fresco as God intended in the crisp autumn sunshine. A handsome woman sits alone at a table near theirs, and men walking by tip their hats as they pass. She ignores most of them, or offers a sedate nod.

"Why?" Niall asks. Obviously he can't.

Louis sighs, clearly frustrated. "Harry can teach you, I suppose. We're going to Courchevel for Christmas and you can't come if you can't ski."

"It'd be fun to learn," Niall says. That taking Niall along would be a given fills him with a buoyant brightness.

"I'll tell Zayn you're coming when he gets here."

"Zayn?" 

"He's organising the trip. He'll be here in a few--"

Zayn's drawl interrupts Louis. "Don't you want to fuck every woman you see just once," he says. Niall turns and sees a striking man--his hair gleams, as do his liquid doe eyes. He's darker-skinned than Louis, and tattoos peek over the edges of his shirt. He's leaned indolently against the wall, lounging even here in the middle of the square. He must've just come around the corner. "Only once." His accent is thickly Northern and mostly mumbling, so far.

Louis laughs, so Niall does as well. Zayn could probably manage fucking every woman he sees, too. Niall wouldn't be surprised if he had. He's never met anyone as instantly and objectively beautiful. Or as grating.

"You look gorgeous," Louis says, no trace of mocking.

"As always," Zayn says, as he pours a tumbler meant for water full of the last of their bottle of Monfortino. Niall bristles. "C'mon, I got us a table at Via Veneto."

"God, it's good to see you," Louis says, throwing his arm over Zayn's shoulder. They walk away as Niall scrambles to collect his things and Louis's. "I'm getting awful cabin fever in Ischia, you know?"

"I do know, I was there," Zayn says, lighting a cigarette. No one introduces Niall at all.

Dinner is constant references Niall doesn't understand about places and people he's never met. Zayn is both entrancing and infuriating, and Louis trails after him in a way Niall's never seen him trail after anyone. They go back to the hotel suite after, and while Louis and Zayn are shut away together on the balcony smoking reefer, Niall lies awkwardly on the sofa in the sitting room, pretending to read.

"Niall," Louis says, popping his head in from outside. "You wanted to go sightseeing, didn't you? Meet me at the train tomorrow morning--seven, right? We've got to go to a club tonight and I probably won't be back. Zayn's arranged it with some of the skiing crowd."

Niall looks at him, book hanging from one hand, at a loss. "What club?"

"You can come if you want," Louis says, shrugging, and it's clear that he doesn't mean it. "I just thought you wanted to go sightseeing."

"I do," Niall says. "And go shopping, like you said. In the morning."

"You can just wear one of my jackets when we get back," Louis says. He grins, in a way that seems final. "See you at the train. Don't wait up for me if I'm late." Zayn stares at Niall through the glass, eyes hooded. Niall leaves the suite.

Rome is beautiful bathed in the gold light of streetlamps while he walks along the Tiber that night. Even if he's out with Zayn now, Louis wanted to bring him here. Louis left Harry behind and swept Niall off to a city he'd never been to before, to show it to him. He called him into the bathroom earlier when he was in the tub. Niall can still feel Louis inside him when he remembers that night in Ischia. The montage plays on repeat as Niall chucks pebbles into the river.

They could stay here, just the two of them. Or go to Venice, not tell Harry or Zayn where they are. Just the label. Niall would help Louis finish his album and Louis would get Niall signed. They'd play together. It'd be perfect, symbiotic. Domestic. He's exactly what Louis needs to get back into gear, and Louis--Niall's never wanted anything more. 

He jerks off lazily when he gets back to his room, starfished on the huge bed. He imagines Louis fucking him deep and slow, kissing him through it, murmuring to him. Holding him until he falls asleep. He pretends he'll be waking up in the morning to Louis asleep beside him, soft and real. He can imagine it so vividly, it feels like he could dream it into reality.

Rome is even more beautiful in the morning as Niall watches the sunrise from Campidoglio. But of course Louis is nowhere to be found at seven when the train leaves.

*

Niall's at the market in Ischia Porto picking up some figs and fresh ciabatta and Pecorino Toscano to have out on the veranda for breakfast. Briana pushes past him as if he were invisible, a man yelling after her in Italian. She runs down the street, tripping along cobblestones, her dark red dress clinging to her calves. 

"Hope Louis's lying low," Zayn says. There's a thick, syrupy smell of reefer clinging to him.

"How's that?" Niall asks. He hides his surprise and distaste--Zayn following him home is an unwelcome turn of events. 

"That's his Briana, innit? American, family of diplomats. Too much drama." He takes a heavy drag from a cigarette, blowing the smoke in Niall's face. Niall's nostrils flare automatically and he gets a snoot full of it. He coughs awkwardly for a moment. Zayn gives Niall a once-over that makes him feel about a foot high. "I'd love to have your job, Niall." He pushes off the wall, and every purposeful movement is like a sneer. He's wearing a smart waistcoat but his white shirt is rumpled, sleeves rolled up and collar unbuttoned, askew. His tattoos starkly contrast with his refined features. Niall's spine prickles and he clenches his hand tight around the basket of breakfast things. 

"Oh?"

"Come to Italy, live in Louis's home, eat his food, sleep in his bed. And Simon picks up the tab. Fuck, if you ever get bored, give me a call. I'd gladly take over."

Zayn starts walking the same way Niall needs to go to get home. Niall doesn't start after him at first, figuring he'll wait until Zayn's far enough down the street that they won't have to awkwardly walk together. Zayn stops after a moment, though, turning his head so his profile is silhouetted against the morning sun, each eyelash visible in shadow. "Coming, sport?" he asks, and Niall is compelled to follow even when Zayn's voice drips condescension. 

"Where are you going?"

"Louis's, obviously."

"It's not even noon." Niall falls into step with Zayn, lips pressed into a thin line. "I thought he missed the train, that the two of you were staying in Rome."

"I had my driver take us this morning." Niall raises his eyebrows--that's a two-hour drive, not counting the ferry. "And you're lying -- you know he's home or you wouldn't be bustling around fixing him breakfast like a little housewife, hmm?" Zayn says, and his tone grates on Niall. "Or is all this for Harry? Wouldn't that be interesting?"

Niall takes a deep breath and ignores it. "He won't want to entertain. He doesn't want to see anyone in the mornings. You should know that."

"We'll see," Zayn says, eyebrow raised imperiously. 

Louis is stretched out on the balcony over the drive when they come up the hill. "Zayno!" he shouts with a bright smile, and Zayn gives Niall a withering told-you-so look. Niall seethes, staring down at his feet rather than betray how much Zayn's got to him. "What took you so long from Naples? I beat you by ages."

"Oh you know," Zayn calls up. "Had to stop and smell the roses." They laugh, and Niall is barely able to peer through the window at them.

"Speaking of which," says Louis, "I've been tending my garden. Got some fresh greens if you like." 

"Don't have to tell me twice," Zayn says, and he grabs the basket from Niall's hand with a swift movement, off up the stairs before Niall can even shout. "I brought breakfast."

Niall doesn't see either of them again for the rest of the day.

He's walking in the surf as the evening sun dips towards the horizon. "Alright, Niall?" Harry asks, catching up with him as the frothy waves rush over their bare feet. 

"Mm," Niall says, noncommittal. "He's a bit difficult sometimes, isn't he?"

"The best ones always are, I think. He's never really yours. Or mine. Wants to be everyone's, doesn't he? If he didn't have every eye on him, he'd just--fall apart. Sometimes he makes you feel so loved. It's like--sunshine. And then he gets bored, distracted, and everything's gone cold." Harry's linen shirt flaps open in the sea breeze, the rise of his shorts leaving soft lines of thigh to glow in the orange light of sunset. 

"I'm coming to see that."

"It's like that with everyone in his life. You, Zayn, Bressie -- have you met him yet? He's lovely, Irish like you." Harry sighs. "Anyway, that's just the boys."

"Do you know Briana?" Niall asks. "She seemed upset at the market this morning. I know she's a friend of his."

"Who?" Harry asks. He only seems concerned for Niall, and Niall tries to shake it off himself, to wear carefree the same way Harry does. 

Niall shakes his head. "Never mind." The more he convinces himself he's fine, the more fine he genuinely feels.

"You're okay, Niall Horan," Harry says, slinging an arm around Niall's shoulders. His long hair tickles against Niall's neck. "You and Louis ought to take the boat out when Zayn's left. Tomorrow, maybe. I have to go to Naples to meet a producer and you know how he pines."

"I could do without the whining and moping, it's true," Niall says with a smile. 

"I'll make you a lunch tonight. You can work on those letters of yours to Simon. Everything will be better in the morning."

"It will," Niall says, putting an arm around Harry's waist. Louis smiling down from the balcony over the drive takes on a sour tinge in Niall's memory--why anyone would do what he does to Harry is beyond Niall. Now it feels less like an exciting secret shared between them, dirty and breathless, and more like a betrayal. 

*

Zayn is inexplicably slouched by the espresso machine when Niall shuffles into the kitchen in the morning. "You're still here?" Niall says, no brain-to-mouth filter yet.

Zayn squints suspiciously at Niall. "You're still here?" he parrots back. "I've known Louis for years, mate, you're the interloper."

"Wouldn't have thought you'd ever seen this side of noon," Niall says blithely, sawing himself a piece of the crusty bread he bought yesterday.

"You literally spoke to me yesterday morning," Zayn says, giving a grimace of a mocking smile. "I see right through you, Horan. Your little suave act doesn't work on me." He drums on the counter and Niall clenches his fists, every beat a fresh irritation. "A little birdy told me you were blond when you got here. It's like how dogs and their masters start looking the same. You're the dog in this scenario, obviously."

Niall feels his prickliness crumpling and doesn't say anything at all. He hasn't been bleaching his hair but he did go to Louis's barber, and with Louis's hair lightened in the sun they're about the same colour by now.

Zayn pushes away from the counter and goes outside. He's still in his waistcoat from yesterday and the same rumpled white shirt. He collapses on the hammock in the garden, motionless except for the sway of the ropes in the breeze. Vindication wells up in Niall's chest -- it doesn't count if Zayn hasn't been to bed yet, and he clearly hasn't. Probably hadn't yesterday, either. He's dead to the world now in the garden and it's only nine in the morning.

Niall makes his espresso, and gets cups out to make some for Louis and Harry when they wake up. He takes his breakfast out to the garden. "How do you know Louis?" he asks. Zayn groans, prying his eyes open, and Niall smiles innocently at him, schadenfreude buoying him up.

"I was on the record label too," Zayn says, distasteful but probably wanting to prove himself. "Couldn't take their shit, didn't wait around to get booted like Louis's doing. I cut and ran ages ago." 

"What do you do now?"

Zayn shrugs, peering at Niall through thick eyelashes. "I wrote a book. Working on another album with a new lot."

"Of course you are," Niall says, smiling tightly. "I'll leave you to it then, shall I?"

Harry and Louis come down one at a time a couple hours later, bleary and smudged and smelling sour, like sex and powder and wine. "Louis, Niall's taking you sailing today," Harry says, voice liquid and low. He's sprawled on the couch, head hanging off the side just enough for the curly ends of his hair to brush the woven rug. Louis's face is pink and damp, like he already stuck it under a cold tap. 

"Is he?" Louis says. Niall pushes a new cup of espresso into Louis's hands, along with a piece of the crusty bread with olive oil, manchego, and fig jam resting neatly on top. Louis inhales it in three bites. 

"He is," Niall says. "Just you and me. Zayn's got so much to do on his album, you know. Simon's about to pull the plug, I think. It's a last hurrah."

"Where will you be?" Louis asks Harry, an edge in his voice.

"Meeting with a producer in Naples," Harry says, daring Louis to question him. Louis stares at him for a long, uncomfortable moment, but he nods. Harry leaves, and thick silence settles around them.

It's finally broken by a pounding on the door. Niall jumps, the espresso he pulled for Harry sloshing in his hands.

"Louis!" a man's voice calls roughly. It's Marco, wild-eyed. He rattles off impassioned Italian that Niall can only partially understand, but he knows it's about Briana.

Once Marco's gone, Louis's hair is in frantic spikes from his sweaty fists gripping in it. His eyes are red-rimmed as he sits at the worn piano in the corner, plunking out mournful chords.

"I know," Niall says, as he picks up bottles and glasses and bits of Louis's clothing strewn about the living room. "I know about you and Briana."

"Stop tidying for Christ's sake!" Louis snaps, real malice in his eyes. "You don't know shit, Niall. She was pregnant, did you know that? She came to me for money. For help. And I didn't help her, and now she's been sent away to god knows where. A convent. A mental hospital. Who even knows what they do to girls like her, here. They say it's a civilised country but it's fucking not."

"I'm sorry--" Niall starts.

"I need to get the fuck out of here," Louis says, barely audible. 

*

"Mr. Horan, in view of the fact that Louis Tomlinson shows no more signs of returning with a completed album than he did before you left…" Niall reads, walking back from the bank and post office with Louis, "etcetera etcetera...I'm glad the trip afforded you some pleasure though it failed in its main objective, etcetera...You should no longer consider yourself obligated to OKeh or Columbia in any way."

Louis plucks the letter out of Niall's hands, glancing over it. "So that's that, then."

"Well, we can still go to Venice though, right?" Niall says, heart thumping. "You can just write to Simon again, and--"

"I can't, though, can I?" Louis says. "They've fired you, I hold no clout with them until I finish the album and even then they'll probably drop me. Christ. I'm so sick of it here. I hate Ischia, especially now. It's alright. We've had a good run. It's time to move on."

Niall is stricken, hand wrapped tight around the strap of his bag. "I thought--"

"You can't afford Venice, can you?" Louis asks, abrasive. "And I want to go up north. San Remo. See about a new boat. How about you come with me, that can be our last hurrah. We can go on that boat trip you wanted before, right? I think the jazz festival is coming up, too." 

Niall doesn't say anything at first, just matches pace with Louis and smiles tightly. "Right."

*

They take a train to San Remo. Louis falls asleep, his face slack and lovely, the lines smoothed. He really has been stressed. Niall tucks down next to him in their cabin, breathing in his breath, pressing his nose to the soft lapel of Louis's jacket and getting his scent, quiet and subtle. If he looks at just the right angle, their reflections merge in the window of the train, and something inside of him lies still, peaceful, finally.

They go to a club that night, lively and vibrant but nothing as seedy as Louis's favourite in Naples. "Now this is more like it," he says, the two of them sipping champagne at a VIP table. "Tell me something, Niall," Louis says with a smirk.

"What?"

"You weren't really ever signed to OKeh, were you?"

"Why would you ask something like that?" Niall asks, trying to keep his face relaxed, his hands flat on the table instead of balled into fists as they start to sweat.

"It's a compliment, really," Louis says. "You have far better taste in music than most of those guys. They're just in it for the dollars, no integrity, no artistry. I've heard you play."

Niall feels his belly warm, the magic of the night touching him. "I'll take it as a compliment, then," he says.

"Fuck, I knew it!" Louis says, throwing his head back, laughing. "Harry owes me. We had a bet. Are you even Irish?"

"That part's real," Niall says, and he forces a smile. Louis stands up to watch the drummer more closely without another word, taking the magic with him, and Niall suddenly has never felt colder. 

The next day, they sit in silence for most of the boat trip. Niall's a fair hand with the little motorboat they rent to get a better look at the coastline of the city, and when Louis drives, he does it listlessly and recklessly by turns. "I brought fishing gear," Niall says, nodding over to the tackle box he picked up.

"Why would I want to fish?" Louis asks, like he's personally offended.

"It might be fun?" Niall says, unsteady in the tumultuous cloud of Louis's mood.

"Fuck your fun," Louis says.

"Come on," Niall tries. "There's the requinto romantico--we could play something?" Louis blanks him. The sun is too hot and Niall can feel himself burning. His hair sticks to his forehead and he squints into the breeze, trying to find someplace to go ashore, some way to get Louis in a better mood. "Let me tell you about my plan then," he says eventually. Louis still hasn't turned around. Niall says it to his back, loud enough that the rush of wind that buffets the boat can't carry it away.

"Alright, fine," Louis says with a sigh. 

"I was thinking--I'll go to LA. I'll put things right. In the new year, I come back to Italy. We could share a house, I'll pay rent. I could help with your album, doing the production, playing instruments." Louis looks skeptical, on the verge of raising an objection. "You could finally finish it. You just need inspiration," Niall says. "I can--I'll be that. I'll write with you. You could--you could even use some of my stuff if you wanted. We'd live in Rome, Venice. Get you out of Ischia, out of that rut."

"What about Harry? Niall, I'm not leaving Harry." Louis looks at Niall like he's an idiot child, and Niall feels very small and very, very stupid.

"But--you're constantly sleeping around. A girl out there is having your baby. You've never been faithful as long as I've known you. It's not like you're marrying him."

"I _love_ Harry," Louis says, and edge to his voice. "The rest of that doesn't matter."

"The music matters, Louis. You can't see that when you're with him. I can--I can bring the music back. You and me, together."

"I don't love you, Niall," Louis says, firm. "In fact, I'm more than a bit glad you're going. This--this is over. You've overstayed your welcome." Niall presses his lips into a line, nodding as he looks at his shoes. Which were once Louis's. "It's boring. You're not inspiring at all, you're fucking boring." 

"The funniest thing is," Niall says, hot rage bubbling up, "you're the fucking boring one. You're the idiot cliche, fighting and sneaking around and snorting your entire career up your nose. You're the one taking everyone who loves you for granted. Taking your art for granted. Can't finish one fucking album. You're following your cock around like a slavering animal, instead, lying to Harry, knocking up Briana. What do you really want, Louis? Do you even know?"

Louis climbs towards Niall as the boat rocks, graceful even in the twisted ugly grip of his anger. "Who the fuck even are you, Niall Horan? You're fucking nobody." He smacks Niall in the face with the flat of his right hand. "You'd be nowhere without me." He smacks Niall with his left hand. "You're nothing." Right again. Niall's vision is going white around the edges. "You're a pathetic, simpering loser." 

"Shut up," Niall murmurs, hands fists on his thighs. "Shut up."

"Louis, Louis, Louis," Louis singsongs. Niall's skin is crawling off his body. He pops Niall square in the nose, pain exploding through Niall's cheekbones and the soft of his eyeballs. He gasps. "Like a whining little--"

Finally Niall gets his hands around something heavy. He heaves as hard as he can, not sure he can even connect with Louis's body with so little leverage, unable to see clearly through the pain and the glare of the sun off the water.

He does connect. Something cracks, the sharp sound splitting the air. Niall pants, Louis's hand tight around Niall's wrist, but then it goes slack. "Oh," Niall starts, ducking down, face next to Louis's to look at where the oar hit him by the temple. "Oh no, I--" Louis is staring at him with wide, shocked eyes. He doesn't say anything at all. "Are you--" Niall's knees are weak and he's trembling, every nerve in him screaming at him to take it back, to fix it, to do something. He didn't mean it. 

Louis gurgles. He can't tell at first but then a thin line of blood traces Louis's temple, his ear, down to the hollow of his throat. Niall's spine tingles and his belly contracts as the thin line of blood blooms large and Louis's scalp starts to peel away, the smooth white of skull shining through in the sun. Niall can't breathe. Louis still looks shocked, shoulders starting to shake. His hands, dotted with his own blood where it drips from his head, convulse. He doesn't look down at them, still staring straight at Niall, gaze boring into him. 

Louis lunges at Niall with a blood-curdling scream. His hands are a vice around Niall's neck, eyes crazy and inhuman as blood drips, viscous, on Niall's face, his glasses, his clothes. Niall kicks at him, pulls at the hair on Louis's torn scalp, anything to get in just one breath of air as everything closes in on him, panic and rage and shock fighting for dominance. "I'll fucking kill you!" Louis screams, and finally Niall is able to shove him off, to push him into the prow of the boat with a kick, the bloody oar grasped tightly in his left hand. 

"Stop it, Louis stop--stop!" Niall pants, but Louis thrashes and flails. He grabs Niall's leg, swinging wildly at him with his other fist, even with a gushing head injury.

"I'll kill you--I'll kill you--I'll kill you!" Louis screams the litany, everything a confused red mess, the boat feeling smaller and smaller and Niall's lungs closing up tighter and tighter. He jabs at the bottom of the boat with the end of the oar, arm muscles convulsing so he couldn't stop even if he wanted to. Louis grabs at the splintering wood, and Niall jabs it again, this time with Louis's arm under the crushing weight of it. He screams, and Niall jabs it again, eyes closed, making contact with something but he's not sure what, doing anything to make the screaming stop, to make all of it stop.

Finally Louis isn't screaming anymore. He starts to choke wetly, bubbles of pink blood popping on his lips, splattering on his white shirt. Niall is frozen solid, nerves screaming now instead, trying desperately to move, to do anything, but he can't. It's like watching a horror movie. Louis slumps, first onto his side, then onto his belly. Blood pools under him, mixing with the salt water on the floor of the boat, diluting and spreading. His ear looks--wrong, somehow. At an odd angle. After a moment, it's clear that it's because Louis's temple is pushed in, soft and unnatural under where his scalp has peeled back to show bone. Niall shivers violently, and Louis's gurgling slowly stops, legs twitching only twice before he shudders and stills.

When Niall turns him over, his eyes are still staring. He could almost still be alive, cheeks pink and lips soft. Niall moves so Louis is looking at him instead of past him to the overbearing bright white-blue of the sky. He brushes at the blood clinging to Louis's chin and mouth, and when it smears, he leans in, tongue out to lick his thumb and wipe it away. Something about the warm stillness of Louis calls to him, like on the train, or when he wakes up next to Louis after a nap in the hammock, Louis still asleep, slack and sweet in repose. Niall kisses the blood away instead, like Louis just got a nosebleed or a split lip, Niall's tongue quick and light, the taste of it metallic and fresh and wholesome as he swallows the tainted spit in his mouth.

He closes his eyes, breathing deep, a stillness falling over his tense limbs, the flight draining out of him. The sun beats down on them in time with Niall's heart. He curls to Louis's chest, a closed parenthesis, head tucked under Louis's chin. They nap, rocked by the swell of the waves, and Niall closes his eyes, close and held in Louis's quiet stillness. It's the lover's embrace he never had, and he tells himself the tears on his cheeks are peaceful. 

He can't see the pink of the water in the boat or the soft pulp of Louis's brain oozing from the split above his ear. It isn't even there.

*

Niall doesn't remember much of what happened between then and returning to Ischia. He sank the boat and Louis's body. He salvaged what he could of their belongings. At their hotel in San Remo, he asked the concierge for his key. 

"Of course. Mr. Tomlinson?" Niall stared at him for a long moment. "It is Mr. Tomlinson, yes?"

"Yes," Niall said, a small light shining into his dark cellar.

He walks into Louis's house, nothing but static in his mind. "Harry!" he calls, hardly needing to pretend his breath is coming heavy, eyes wide with surprise. "Harry!" His voice cracks. "Are you back?"

"Out here," Harry says, meeting Niall on the patio, hair up in a bun, tendrils floating around his face. "I just got back a moment ago. What's--Niall, what's happened?"

"It's Louis," Niall says, mind racing. "I--I tried to stop him, but he. He's gone."

"Gone?" Harry says, no real sense of urgency. Curiosity draws his brows up, the sweetness incongruous to the sucking mess Niall is teetering on the edge of. Niall grabs his shoulders, Harry leaning into his grip.

"He--he ran off from San Remo. To Rome, I think. He didn't say why, just that I ought to tell you." Niall slides one hand down to entwine his fingers with Harry's. When Harry absently grips back, Niall covers their hands with his other one. Grounds himself with it and puts as much sincerity as he can into every movement. Harry's palm is warm and dry.

"Why? I don't believe that," Harry says, laughing, though it sounds strained. "He's joking. Playing a prank. He has to be."

"No," Niall says. "No, he wasn't. I'm meant to pack his things."

Harry shakes his head, in denial. "He'll come back. He always comes back after he has a fit. You don't know him."

"Maybe I should go find him," Niall says, stroking a hand up Harry's forearm. His muscles are corded. "Bring him home."

"I don't care what you do," Harry says, face closed off. "Listen, you can't possibly understand--what you do won't matter. Not to him. He's different with me. Real, sweet. He doesn't, can't, love you like that." There are tears in his eyes, red-rimmed, like the possibilities are beginning to occur to him. Niall is finding it difficult to breathe, now. "Maybe I should go to Rome. He'd hate it. He hates when I make him own up to his bullshit. But he has to." He leaves without letting Niall reply, pushing back into the house and up to his room. Niall knows the state he'd find him in if he followed.

He packs for Rome. 

*

Niall's voice is a bright Yorkshire timbre when he asks the bank teller to make a transaction for him, Louis Tomlinson. She asks for identification and Niall smiles, sliding her Louis's passport. Louis's expressionless photo peers back at them, and Niall considers it for a moment. He's tanned in the sun, his hair looks just like Louis's. Blue eyes. Roughly the same unimpressive height. If he squints a bit when he greets the teller, the photo is old and washed out enough that they could honestly be the same person. He slips Louis's gold 28 ring on from where it sits warm in the pocket of his jacket--it fits him perfectly.

From there, things just fall into place, domino after domino. In Rome, Niall checks into a cheap hotel as himself and into the Hotel d'Inghilterra as Louis, leaving a few telephone messages with the front desks for authenticity. He takes in Rome again, this time under Louis's name, trying to ground himself and see through new eyes, everything else shut away in the cellar, at bay. 

He's having a coffee, marinating in the sounds of the piazza, when he hears an excited voice. "Louis? Tomlinson?" 

Liam Payne, of the textile Paynes, sits himself down at Niall's table. "Liam!" Niall says, smiling smoothly.

"You absolute dog," Liam says, grinning. "I can't believe my luck, running into you here. Zayn told me about Ischia. The girls. The drama. No wonder you don't like to travel under your own name."

"I left Ischia," Niall says, solemn. "Trying to get away from all that." The words just fall out of his mouth.

"Of course, right," Liam says, immediately sympathetic. "Sorry, I--"

"No, it's good. I have a new life now. A new start."

"Shall we start your new life in style, then?" Liam asks with a glint in his eye. "You know, I was just about to be very naughty and spend rather a lot of money, and that's always more fun with two, isn't it?"

After more suits than two young men really need at once and several overly expensive room service deliveries, Niall and Liam lounge, sated, in Niall's room at the Hotel d'Inghilterra. "I need to get a flat," Niall says, flipping through a newspaper without reading any of the Italian.

"I could help. I know some friends with properties." Liam sits up. "Say, I know you're mad for jazz," he says, "but could you be convinced to come to the symphony? I've been trying to give my tickets away, but -- well, could I drag you, d'you think?"

"You could drag me," Niall says, and he swears that Liam blushes.

*

The symphony is transcendent. Niall genuinely came to love jazz, and so does he think he'd come to love any kind of music. It thrums in his blood and moves him to tears and the dark cloying sounds of tonight's performance in particular reach something deep and secret inside him, stroking delicate fingers on the cellar door.

"Thank you so much for inviting me," he says to Liam as they clink champagne flutes during the intermission, Liam's eyes warm and brown and welcoming. "If you'll excuse me for a moment--loo."

He walks through the brightly coloured, silken throng of older, richer bodies. As he rounds a corner in the hallway, he runs into a man--literally runs into him, solid chest like a wall. "Christ," Niall whispers to himself. "Pardon me, I'm--" he looks up. The man is incredibly tall and broad, with a warm, slightly crooked smile and bright eyes. His hair is dark and tousled.

"So sorry," the man says, one big hand steadying Niall by the shoulder. It's warm even through Niall's jacket. 

"Niall?" says a voice, and Niall whips around, loath to break eye contact with the handsome man. It's Harry. Niall's feels fleetingly like he might throw up.

"Harry? What are you doing in Rome?"

"Is he here? Is Louis here with you?"

Niall shakes his head, twisting his hand in his pocket to slip Louis's ring off. "No--"

Niall struggles to keep a smooth smile on his face, knowing Liam is just around the corner, tripping through every question. He can't enjoy Harry with his hair slicked and plaited back in the French style, sharp tuxedo on, every bit the shining young actor. As soon as he gets the ring off his sweaty fingers, he turns to the man, who is clearly here with Harry. "I'm so sorry, I'm Niall Horan," he says.

"Bressie," the man says. "Niall Breslin, actually." He grins. "It was my name first by a long while, I'm fairly certain."

"Not all that long." Niall laughs, only partially forced, palms still damp enough that he doesn't offer a handshake. "I've heard so much about you from Harry and Louis," he says.

"Likewise." Bressie bows his head towards Niall, corner of his mouth quirked up. "Where are you hiding Louis? I would've thought it'd be impossible."

"I'm--" Niall starts.

"I thought you were going to Venice?" Harry says, brow creased and clearly fretting.

"Yes I'd heard you were desperate to come," Bressie says, smiling softly. "I was hoping it'd be sooner rather than later."

"I--yes, I am," Niall says, distracted first by Bressie's wording, and then by the bell calling them back to their seats.

"Oh, there's Liam," Bressie says, and Niall's heart sinks. "Christ, what's his surname? The textile people--I've been to their estate, you'd think I'd remember. I'm awful."

Harry looks down the hallway, the direction Niall came from. "I don't know him," he says, and Niall is dizzy with relief.

"Well, let's meet up after the performance?" Bressie asks, cheerful, putting Liam from his mind. "Or--are you with someone?"

"I can't, actually," Niall says, too nervous to be pleased at the way Bressie's smile fades a bit. "It was lovely meeting you, though."

He waits until Bressie and Harry are almost inside before he comes back up the steps, returning to his box with Liam. On the walk home, Liam comes up with a list of flats for Niall to look at the next day, and it feels like he has some semblance of control back.

*

A bedraggled building with rich interiors sits on the bank of a river, old-world charm married with modernity, just affordable enough for the likes of Louis Tomlinson. Niall rents the fourth floor, furnished, complete with a Bösendorfer only slightly out of tune. Niall tightens the strings and sits, brushing his fingers over the keys, white as bone, before he's even unpacked.

He plays _Music of Changes_ , each discordant phrase draining more tension from him, settling him deeper. 

Niall sleeps that first night in his modernist flat, sleek lines and minimalism and everything the cluttered charm of Louis's villa in Ischia wasn't. His sleep is dreamless, heavy, and when he wakes up, the air is fresher and his mind is clearer than yesterday.

It's two weeks before a knock at the door that sends Niall's pulse racing. He hadn't ordered any food, hadn't ordered any more new furniture. He sidles up to the peephole. 

It's Zayn. He's wearing a black trilby and a red overcoat, unmissable. "I know you're in there," Zayn says. "If you don't open the door, Louis, I'm breaking it down."

Niall's hands sweat and he closes his eyes, trying to steady himself as he pitches and yaws, nauseated. Zayn pounds ceaselessly on the door and it crashes into the thudding of Niall's head, everything blurring together, overwhelming.

"He's not _here_ ," Niall says, yanking the door open. "Damn it to hell, he's not here. I've looked everywhere."

Zayn blinks owlishly for a moment, and the way his eyes narrow in suspicion pierces Niall through the sternum. "Niall," Zayn says, his drawling emphasis on it obnoxious. "Where have you been?"

"Here, just like you. Looking for Louis. I found this place, his place. I found all his things. But no Louis."

"No Louis." He sucks his teeth, putting on an accented, babyish voice. "Little Niall can't find Louis anywhere." Every syllable grates on Niall's raw nerves. Zayn throws his hat onto the couch, shrugging out of his coat though Niall hasn't invited him to stay. He throws it deliberately onto the open piano, fastenings clanking against the strings. Niall shudders.

"He just doesn't want to be found," Niall says. His own accent feels thick and odd on his tongue, new clothes bought with Louis's money garish and obvious on his body.

Zayn pushes into the apartment, looking around at the clean lines and obsessive tidiness. "Isn't really his style, is it?" Zayn says. "Boring. So fucking boring."

"I don't know," Niall manages, something hot and angry and scared bubbling up in him. Flashes of white sun and a red oar. "Seems like Louis to me."

"No," Zayn says baldly, striding through the rest of the rooms, Niall tripping at his heels to keep up. "No, the only thing in this entire place that looks like Louis," he drawls, turning on Niall with a glare, "is you."

Niall blinks back at Zayn, stock still but frantic inside, like he's trapped in a elevator. "I think you've got it all wrong," he says, voice dry and lips chapped. "I don't know what you're implying, Zayn, but--"

"Yes you do," Zayn says. "I've had your number from the first fucking day I saw you, Horan." He shoves Niall, strength belied by his lithe frame. His voice is sharp and nasty. "Where is he? What did you--"

Niall picks up the abstract stone sculpture from the plinth by the fireplace in wet hands and brings it down squarely on the back of Zayn's neck. He sobs out the breath he was holding as Zayn drops, a hoarse yell the last audible sound he makes. He scrabbles against the lush carpet on the dark wood floor and Niall grits his teeth against a moan, bringing the statue down again, and again, the thuds getting wetter and slipperier until it sounds like tenderizing meat, soft and muted. The movement is rote, and Zayn's hands and feet still twitch, or it seems like they do. Niall doesn't stop until the thud comes back, stone hitting the solid wood through the carpet.

He gasps out a sob, rolling away from the mess on the floor with his eyes closed, terror giving way to a wash of something much darker, sickly, pulling on him until there's nothing left. The statue clunks heavily where he drops it, shards of white and globs of greyish taupe sliding slickly down the side.

Time is nothing, space is nothing, Niall is floating in blackness until the sound of a car door slamming outside jerks him back into the present, into the apartment in Rome, onto the floor next to Zayn's crumpled body. He lies frozen for a moment, unable to remember his own name, until drunken singing in the courtyard propels him into motion. He pulls on Zayn's gloves and grabs Zayn's hat and coat, doing what he can to get Zayn back into them, avoiding as much of the mess as he can. 

Thankfully Zayn is slight, and weighs hardly anything even in Niall's arms. Draped around Niall's shoulders, Niall can stagger well enough to where Zayn's Bentley is parked haphazardly by a tree, his carpet pulled up and stashed inside Zayn's coat. 

"Signor Tomlinson!" the landlord shouts. "Are you alright?"

"Just had a bit too much to drink," Niall says, forcing a smile and a wave. "I'll drive him home tonight, it'll be fine." He surreptitiously rummages in Zayn's pockets for his car key, finally managing to get the passenger side door open and Zayn's body bundled into the car.

He doesn't drive home. He drives to the river. Weighed down with rocks from the bank, Zayn's light body disappears into the inky water, red coat black in the reflected night.

*

The night that follows is sweaty and sleepless. Niall writes down the time whenever he wakes up and can't drop off again -- 1.47, 3.44, 4.58. The wee small hours of the morning creep up on him, inevitable. He tries to go about his business, tries to be normal the next day, but his anxiety clutches at him in talons so strong he can barely breathe, can barely eat. 

There's another knock at his door. "Signor Tomlinson?" asks a voice. "Signor Tomlinson, Polizia. I have some questions for you, if you please." Niall answers the door with a forced smile, Louis settling over his shoulders like a weighty yoke. 

"I'm Inspector Winston, and I regret that I must inform you that a Mr. Zayn Malik, a friend of yours, if I'm not mistaken, has been found dead."

Niall gasps. "What?" he says, breathy, barely voiced.

"I'm afraid so. I'd like to ask you some questions, if you'd be so kind."

"When did he die?" Niall asks, letting his very real anxiety bleed through just enough. He grips at the doorjamb until his knuckles are white. Inspector Winston eyes his hand, and Niall drops it. "Please, forgive me for my rudeness, it's just such a shock. Come in." He steps back into the apartment, gesturing vaguely towards the sofa. "Can I get you something to drink, Inspector?" He has a partner with him. "Or for you--"

"Detective Soutar. No, grazie." Both policemen are strikingly handsome, but it only puts Niall more on-edge. 

"He died last night," Winston says. He hovers, looking around the room, inspecting rather than sitting. Niall feels the nerves winding like tightly coiled snakes in his belly. "Where were you last night, Mr. Tomlinson? Some of the other tenants of this building say they saw him leave with you."

"He'd had too much to drink," Niall says, pressing his lips together compulsively, running a hand through his hair, emotions bubbling upsettingly close to the surface. "I drove him home. I must've been back here by--nine or so?"

"That's interesting, Mr. Horan," says Winston. He looks genuinely confused. "The coroner has ascertained the time of death to be about seven PM."

"Ah sure, look," Niall says, a little too loud, a little too quickly. "He wasn't dead when he was with me, was he!"

"I apologise," says the inspector. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"I'm not upset, I'm just--he just couldn't have died before nine. That's all," Niall says, taking deep breaths, calming himself down. The inspector's suit is sharp and well-tailored, and he has a new-looking hat in one hand. His partner is wearing a typical Italian police uniform. "Did anyone else see him?" Niall asks, trying for quieter, gentler.

"As a matter of fact, yes," says Inspector Winston, sighing. "A couple saw you both in the car nearer to eight. The gentleman refuses to make an official statement because he was cheating on his wife at the time. Very irritating situation. You see, I'm just trying to get things in order."

Niall nods, staring at the void of the fireplace. His mouth has gone dry. "I'm sorry I can't be of more help, sir," he says. "This is just--it's very sudden, you see, and I just--he was just alive, and now he's--" he lets go a bit, just enough to shiver, for his eyes to go glassy and watery. Inspector Winston puts a warm hand on Niall's shoulder.

"I am sorry, Mr. Horan," he says. "Thank you for your cooperation. I'll leave my card for you so you can give me a call if you think of anything else helpful, alright?"

Niall nods, and he doesn't get up to show them out. He finally feels like he can breathe again when the door clicks shut behind Officer Soutar. He scrubs his hands over his face before he gets up to lock it again.

Inspector Winston's card is sitting on the credenza, and Niall picks it up, staring through it rather than at it. He's tired--bone-deep tired, tired into his soul. It's dark down there, and silent, and he longs to toss the doors open. He crumples the card in his his hand, but he doesn't throw it away.

*

"Niall!" 

In Niall's dream, a siren is calling him from a jagged rock in the ocean. He sits in a rowboat like the San Remo rental, soaked in blood. His fingers ache, and when he looks down at them, they're all broken, at jagged angles just like the rock. He cries.

"Louis!"

The name changes, but the siren is still calling for him. It would be so easy to roll over the side of the boat. To wash up on the rock, smacking against its sharp edges, letting his hot blood pour out, churning into a pink froth on the sea.

"Louis!"

With a start, Niall jerks awake. He's on the couch. Someone is rapping on his door, calling for Louis. It's not the Inspector. "Fuck--just a minute!" he yells, tumbling onto the floor. When he peers through the peephole, Harry is on the other side, wrapped in a fur coat and tousled, puffy-eyed. Niall's heart skips at the same time his belly curdles. He opens the door.

"Niall?" Harry says, voice hoarse. "What--where's Louis? The landlord said--where is he?" Harry asks, striding from room to room with long legs. "Where's Zayn?" Seeing Harry anything but placid or smiling is unusual, like Niall's missed a step going down the stairway outside his door. "Why have I come all the way to Rome and the only one I ever see anymore is you?" 

"He's out," Niall says, bleary. "Louis, he--he doesn't want to see anyone, Harry. Hi, by the way. You look gorgeous. I--"

"Shut _up_ , Niall, I need to see him. I have to see him right now, this is fucking ridiculous." There are tears welling in Harry's eyes, and his nose is red like when he's got hayfever.

"What is?" Niall asks. He takes one of Harry's hands, and Harry lets himself be led to the sofa. Niall pushes him down on it and goes to make him a cup of tea with more than a little booze in it.

"This isn't like him. It's been weeks now. I know he's Louis, I do, but this is--he's never done something like this before. He always comes back. He loves me, Niall. He's never just _left_. I spoke to the police, and they said he's here."

"Did they tell you about Zayn?"

"What about Zayn?" Harry runs a hand through his hair, tousling it, touching the ends of it compulsively. "He was supposed to call me when he caught up with Louis."

"Harry, he--they found him. Dead." Harry is white as a sheet. 

"They what?"

"They don't know what happened--"

"What about Louis? Is he--"

"Louis is fine," Niall says, a steady hand on Harry's thigh. "He was here earlier today. He just--he just needed to get away from all this. The police, the questions, the stress. He's having a really awful time of it. Doesn't want to see anyone."

Harry looks devastated, completely lost. He's teary, and can't seem to focus. Taking a sip of his tea is visible effort. "I should--I should go look for him. Christ. Zayn's dead."

"No, you need rest. You can stay with me if you want," Niall says. He squeezes his hand, fingers pressing into the meat of Harry's thigh. Harry shivers almost imperceptibly. "I have a guest room. Or--"

Harry stares at Niall's outfit, at Louis's 28 ring where it sits on Niall's finger. "Niall," he says, a tremor in his voice. "You still haven't told me where Louis is. What--you've done something. You did something to Louis." As he repeats himself, the litany gets higher and louder, and Niall grabs Harry around the waist, claps a hand over his mouth to quiet him.

"Shh," he says, soothing at first, but something's flipped and Harry's eyes are wide and wet with tears and Niall's heart is thudding, hands slipping up Harry's chest to his shoulders, to his neck--

There's a knock at the door. Niall leaps up like he's been burned, and Harry throws himself off the couch, lurching for the door with a gasping sob. 

Niall expects it to be Inspector Winston, mind already whirling with stories, with what to say about Harry and how he's gone hysterical without Louis.

It's Bressie. "Harry?" he says, warm and concerned, pulling Harry to his chest with one arm, the other pulling the door shut behind him. "What's all this?" He looks around, meeting Niall's eyes with a lift of his brow, obviously not expecting to see him. "I thought I was paying a friendly visit for a nightcap, not walking into a melodrama."

"He's just very distraught," Niall says, slipping Louis's ring off in his pocket. 

"He did something to Louis!" Harry cries, eyes pleading as he looks up at Bressie, one hand stretched accusingly toward Niall. "I don't know what he did but he did something. I know he did. I know he did. Louis wouldn't leave like that--he wouldn't leave me like that!"

"Shh," Bressie says, one big hand stroking through Harry's hair, rubbing gently at the back of his neck. "It's alright, Harry. C'mon now, let's get you home." He looks apologetically at Niall, tilting his head just so. Niall nods back, taking a long, slow breath. When they've left, the room is quiet and still, and Niall wraps up in a blanket, back on the couch, a closed parenthesis. 

*

Niall jerks awake to another knock at the door, his chest clenching automatically now, a pavlovian fear response. "It's just Bressie," Bressie says, his smooth low voice sounding like home. A home Niall's almost forgotten, bleached out of him from too much sun, from burying it too deep. 

Niall slumps to the door and lets Bressie in, breathing in shakily. "Alright?" Niall asks.

"I should be asking you that," Bressie says. "I'm so sorry this is such a show for all of you. I came back to see how you were."

"I'm okay," Niall says, unclenching his fists for what feels like the first time in months. "How's Harry?"

"He'll manage," Bressie says. "It's all such a shock." Niall just nods. Bressie says with a careful smile, "I could put on the kettle, maybe? Some tea'd do wonders."

"I wouldn't turn it down," Niall says, something raw and heavy unspooling in his chest. He can finally breathe.

Bressie makes the tea and Niall dozes, vision soft around the edges. Bressie's humming something, and the next thing Niall knows, Bressie's playing a song at the piano, a steaming cup of just-sweet-enough tea at Niall's elbow. "Must've fallen asleep," Niall says.

"Must've needed it," Bressie says. The song he's playing is sparse and minimal, but beautiful, something modern yet warm. 

"What's that?" Niall asks.

"Dunno," Bressie says with a bashful shrug. "The acoustics in here just begged for a tune. Thought it sounded like you."

Niall doesn't know what to say to that. "How do you know what sounds like me?" he asks. He meant it to be cheeky, but it mostly sounds plaintive.

"I guess I don't," Bressie says. His smile is small but real. "Just feels like you, that's all."

"I don't even know what feels like me, anymore. I don't know what 'me' is," Niall says, the sleep and the music and the tea loosening him, the warmth and Bressie's voice peeling back his layers, lovingly parting his scalp from his skull. 

"We're all a bit lost sometimes," Bressie says. Niall gets up to sit next to him on the piano bench, every part of him wanting just to be closer. He hasn't touched anyone without cracking a part of himself off and sinking it in the water since before Louis and the boat. Bressie moves down the keys, making room for Niall to play. Niall picks out a halting harmony, and Bressie laughs, a low rumble more than a sound. "That's it, Chief," he says. "Not half bad."

"This bit can be you," Niall says, barely more than a mumble. 

"I'd like that," Bressie says, and presses his leg to Niall's, warm and solid.

*

Bressie stays the night in Niall's guest room, and in the morning he's in just his undershirt and boxers making tea when Niall shuffles into the kitchen. "How'd you sleep?" he asks Niall, pushing him down firmly but gently into a chair at the kitchen table. He slides a plate of buttered toast over, as well as an egg over-easy. 

"I'm meant to ask you that," Niall says, but he takes a grateful sip of his tea. He's sloughed off so much of his anguish that he almost feels normal this morning, the dark wood floor by the piano not glistening with phantom blood at all today. "And fix breakfast for you. You're the guest."

Bressie twists a chair around and sits on it backwards, scooted up closer to Niall's side of the table. He rests his arms across the back, and Niall lets his eyes linger on Bressie's muscles, on the pull of his white cotton shirt across his chest, on the thick expanse of thigh where it brushes against his own leg. "Ah sure look, you're a mess, Nialler," he says, eyes crinkled with the kindness in it. "I reckon you need a bit of looking after." He sits up straight, hands going to his lap. "Unless you'd rather I piss off, of course."

"No!" Niall starts. "No, this is--unbelievable. Lovely, really. I haven't--christ." He can feel tears welling up in his eyes, so he tilts his head up, blinking madly at the ceiling, trying to keep them unshed. 

"No need for all that, now," says Bressie, soft and soothing. "I know."

They eat breakfast in comfortable silence, and Niall cleans up, Bressie leaned casually against the wall, just watching him. Niall's back doesn't itch with it, though, and he doesn't feel heavy or jittery. It's just nice. It's just being seen. "Have you seen much of Rome?" Niall asks.

"Well," Bressie says, smiling at his feet. Niall can see it in the set of his cheeks, though. 

"You lived here for a decade or something, didn't you," Niall says, a hint of laughter coming through from somewhere deep and forgotten.

"Hardly. Just three years, a while back," Bressie says, looking up to meet Niall's eyes. Niall feels it in his whole body, and it almost knocks him breathless with want. He turns to press his hips into the kitchen counter. "Maybe we could go for a walk in the piazza. I could show you some of my favourite corners to tuck away into."

"Doubt you could tuck away anywhere," Niall says, looking up exaggeratedly at Bressie's towering height. He hip-checks him, and Bressie's adam's apple bobs in an audible swallow. "Let's go."

The sun is bright and the breeze is pleasant as Bressie shepherds Niall around the city. They sit on the Spanish Steps and eat gelato, Niall begs for just a little more time at the Galleria Borghese, and Bressie makes good on his word, tucking them into out of the way shops and cafes and parks wherever he can, pulling Niall's body flush to his side, holding him, rubbing a thumb at the back of his neck, any casual but electric touches he can steal.

Niall's keyed up by the time they get back to his flat, half-hard and wanting though he's also sweaty and exhausted. Bressie's pouring them sorely needed grappa from the decanter on the sideboard, and his casual belonging in the space makes Niall brave. "Do you -- sorry if this is forward, but do you want stay, maybe? With me? It's not that I can't be alone, I just--"

"Of course I do," Bressie says. "Place is big enough, isn't it? Just you rattling around on your own in there, no wonder you're a bit frayed around the edges."

"That's a nice way of putting it."

"How would you put it?" he tugs Niall towards himself, and Niall melts into him, face pressed against the clean sweat smell of Bressie's crisp shirt. 

"Gone completely fucking mental," Niall says, and Bressie laughs, another sick, rotting weight falling off Niall's shoulders and into the black waters of the river.

"Or that." 

"My two-step plan to address it is nearing completion," Niall says, grabbing his drink from Bressie's hand before he's even done pouring. Bressie fumbles to avoid spilling.

"Stiff drink is step one--what's step two?"

"A long, hot soak would be just the ticket, I think."

Bressie's eyes are dark, but he just nods. "I can entertain myself. Maybe." He tosses back his grappa in one gulp.

Niall's pushing his robe off his shoulders, about to step into the steaming bath, when the bathroom door creaks ajar. He looks up with a tense intake of breath, but of course it's just Bressie. "Guess I couldn't entertain myself after all." His eyes are dark and his chest rises and falls with heavy breaths. "Tell me if I've got this wrong," he starts, but before he can finish his sentence, Niall pulls the door the rest of the way open. He doesn't care about his nakedness, doesn't care what he looks like. Bressie catches him with a sigh, arms wrapped tight around him, holding him close and warm. "I take it I don't have it wrong," he says, eyes twinkling.

"You don't," Niall says, and Bressie kisses him. Bressie doesn't taste like anything but spit and warmth, no trace of wine or drugs or smoke. He kisses Niall and it's everything it should be, their bodies meeting, Niall's hands tight on Bressie's ribs, neck bent back but not painful as Bressie holds him. He gets tingles starting at the top of his head all the way down his neck and through his shoulders and back, feeling small but not fragile against Bressie's chest, his legs slotted into Bressie's.

"The water'll get cold," Bressie murmurs against Niall's lips. Niall doesn't want to stop kissing him. He doesn't want to be in the world outside this moment.

"Not if you're in it with me," Niall says, and Bressie squeezes him like he can't help it. He's still wearing his boxers, and Niall can feel his cock, solid and hot where it's straining against them. Niall's rubs against the fabric stretched over Bressie's thigh, smearing it wet. "Fuck, sorry," he whispers, embarrassed.

"No, Christ," Bressie says, and Niall tries to pull away, but Bressie pulls him in tighter so Niall's straddling his thigh, rubbing the head of his dick in the crease where Bressie's long leg meets his hip. "It's hot. Don't stop."

"Take 'em off," Niall says, tugging ineffectually at the waistband. Bressie laughs, just a pleased huff of breath through his nose, and scrambles out of them with a surprising lack of grace. He slips in the high-sided tub, barely even sloshing any out.

"C'mon," he says, arms open for Niall to join him.

"I'll crush you," Niall says, hesitant. Shadows are beginning to gather in the corners of the ceiling.

"No you won't," Bressie says, firm and soft. The shadows recede, and Niall sinks into the tub and into Bressie's waiting arms.

*

Bressie leaves only after Niall promises to follow him to Venice as soon as he can. Niall makes some half-hearted excuses about things he needs to take care of--it's hard not to just run away with Bressie right then.

He starts with the easy part: repacking Louis's suitcase. He goes through everything of Louis's that he's acquired, both from San Remo and before. The clothes Niall saw him wear most often, he packs, along with his toiletries, jewelry. All but the 28 ring, which Niall selfishly slips into his own pocket. It weighs heavily against his hip, and he can't forget that it's there, but letting it go seems impossible now. The rest of Louis's clothes he puts with his own things. One shirt, a soft white silk one, has LT embroidered in a subtle monogram on the collar. Niall trails the tips of his fingers over it, rough callouses snagging at the material. He presses it to his cheek, allowing himself a moment to sink into the fog, to stop pushing through.

He throws it into Louis's suitcase and snaps it shut with a deliberate click.

In the small alcove off the living room, there's a sleek, modern writing desk adorned with candles and a typewriter. Niall lights the candles, letting his mind empty out as he sits, fingers poised over the keys.

 _My dear Niall,_ he types, the imagined sound of Louis saying it warming him up from the inside.

_I'm getting out of this. All the trouble I've caused, Briana, Zayn's death. I can't face it. I can't face you, the public, not anyone. I wish I could give you the career I took for granted. You've always understood my heart, Niall. Harry never could. I suppose that's why I'm writing this to you, the only true friend I ever knew. In so many ways you're much more like the artist my label always wanted. You can change the people, change the scenery, but you can't change your own rotten core. I'm haunted by everything I've done. I can't undo any of it. I'm sorry, I can't continue like this. I've failed too deeply at being Louis Tomlinson._

Niall signs it, a painstaking copy of Louis's own signature, and slips it in an envelope with _Niall Horan_ printed on the front. He leaves it gently leaning against the lid of the piano, along with Louis's passport. He opens it to the picture and stares for a long moment, fingers clenched around the ring in his pocket. Quickly, like peeling off a plaster, he takes the ring out and uses the edge to scratch over Louis's picture, obliterating his face completely from the page, curls of paper peeling softly away and sprinkling across his own name on the envelope beneath.

With that, he hauls Louis's suitcase in one hand and his own in the other, descending to the dank, communal basement of the apartment building. It smells rotted and mouldering, so little light that every pile of forgotten detritus looks like a looming monster. There's a sofa with a dust cover pushed up against one of the walls, and under this he slides Louis's suitcase.

The cold, strobing blue of a police light floods the basement for a heart-stopping moment, Niall looking up through the high, thin window to ground-level where stomping boots pass by, Italian voice rough and deep. He slips out a side door, into an alley, and doesn't look back as rain starts to fall around him, soaking Louis's coat.

*

Several days later, Venice is overcast and chilled when Niall arrives, but Bressie is standing on the dock to welcome him and it suddenly doesn't feel cold at all. Gulls swoop around them, and Bressie puts a heavy arm around Niall's shoulders, drawing him close. "Wonderful to see you here, Chief," he says with a gentle smile. He's taller even than Niall remembered, and broader. He's wearing a well-fitted black peacoat and soft grey flannel trousers. His shoes are comfortable-looking black leather, unmistakably Italian. A soft opal scarf curls around his neck, and Niall wants to bury his face in it.

"You're a sight for sore eyes yourself," Niall says, grinning. His hand is still tight around the handle of his battered suitcase, but tension slowly seeps out of him as Bressie leads the way. 

"You haven't got a place to stay, have you?" Bressie asks, and Niall startles for a moment before he continues. "Not--uh. I just mean, I have a friend who's looking to sublet for a while, and I think you'd like it. A bit damp, but what isn't around here?"

"Oh you think I'd like it, do you?" Niall says. "What do you know about what I like?" He smiles, knocking his shoulder into Bressie's. It feels good to play this game, to be this instead of whatever he's been up until this moment.

"Alright, alright," Bressie says, shrugging self-consciously. "Not much, I admit. But it's got a beautiful piano and the acoustics are brilliant. You seemed to like that well enough in Rome. I know music means a lot to you."

"I think I'll like it, too," Niall says.

It turns out to be beautiful--eclectic furniture, sweepingly high ceilings, perfect views. Bressie was not wrong, though, it's damp straight through. "Dunno if that's in tune," Bressie starts, but Niall's already hovering his hands over the keys. He gently picks out the little melody Bressie played him back in Rome and the harmony he added in. 

"Not perfect, but good enough."

Bressie was throwing open shutters, trying to air the place out, but he stops, coming over to stand by Niall's side. "You remembered that?"

"Of course. Very good memory for flattery, I have."

"That wasn't flattery."

"Well. No matter, I remembered it either way. Been trying to write some words to it."

"What have you got so far?" Bressie sits down on the bench next to Niall, just watching his hands. It makes Niall feel like he's real again, tangible.

"I don't think you'll like it," Niall says. None of the words he's been thinking about himself has been particularly good since Rome.

"What do you know about what I like?" Bressie says, a playful tone mocking what Niall said earlier.

"I think--you like me. For some reason. And I don't, right now. Haven't for a while." Niall keeps his eyes trained on the keys he's playing, voice quiet.

Bressie doesn't say anything at all, just a solid, quiet presence. He pulls Niall's hand off the piano, the one playing harmony, and just holds it. Niall picks out the melody alone, one-handed.

*

Bressie takes Niall to the train station with him the next day. They're meant to be meeting Harry, and while Niall would really rather be doing anything else, he wants to spend the time with Bressie and he needs to try and get back on Harry's good side.

"Haz!" Bressie says brightly. He pulls Harry in for a hug, but he doesn't linger. 

"So good to see you, Bressie," Harry says. "Niall." He nods, curt. "You'll know Mr. Cowell, then, won't you? Bressie, this is Simon Cowell. From Louis's record label."

Simon Cowell steps off the train behind Harry, as does another man with him carrying two black leather suitcases. He shakes Bressie's hand, and Niall's heart thuds painfully in his chest. "Mr. Cowell," he says, forcing a grin. "So good to see you again."

"I can't say the same, I'm afraid," Simon says, face blank. "There seems to be rather a lot of mess that needs looking into and cleaning up. I wish I didn't have to be here." He gestures to the other man. "This is Mr. Griffiths. He's a private investigator, and he'll be assisting us with this unsavoury matter. We're in contact with the police in Rome as well as Ischia. We're visiting everywhere Mr. Tomlinson has been seen in the past several months, doing all the legwork."

Harry looks hopeful, and Bressie claps him gently on the back. "The letter he left for Niall, everything, it just--it doesn't make sense," Harry says.

"We'll be looking into all of it," Simon says. "Niall, I do hope we can have a chat soon. There's a lot to discuss."

"Of course," Niall says.

They make their way back to Bressie's car, and they ride in awkward silence to the hotel where Harry, Simon and Mr. Griffiths are staying. Bressie helps them all with their bags, of course, and once he gets back in the car he sighs, looking at Niall with a bewildered face.

"That was far more awkward than I thought it would be."

"I can't say I would've agreed to come with you if I'd known the Royal Guard would be here."

Bressie laughs. "Let me make it up to you. Come back to my flat with me."

He more than makes it up to Niall. He makes lunch--stuffed aubergine, which they make far too many jokes about. It's delicious, and watching him in the kitchen lulls Niall into easy contentment. They drink wine, and Bressie plays him some of his favourite recordings of Vivaldi and Monteverdi while Niall lies on the threadbare carpet and tells Bressie about how homesick he was in LA. 

He turns off the record player after a bit. Bressie's got a guitar in a stand next to the couch, and Niall hovers a hand over the neck of it until Bressie gives him a nod. "Go on, then."

He picks out a tune--something simple and quiet that he'd been working on before he left the US, about belonging and inevitability. With Bressie's gentle eyes on him, he finds it in himself to sing the words, as well.

"Home's always with you," Bressie says, once Niall's fallen silent again. He looks down at Niall from where he's splayed across the couch, and his gaze is steady. "I can hear it in your voice. The green and the people and the pride. You haven't lost it, Chief. It's in your music."

*

Bressie's folded in half to fit in the bedraggled club chair in Niall's sitting room -- "It's not uncomfortable, I swear." -- when a knock sounds at the front door. The sick dread comes back, the pit in Niall's stomach yawning open again after days of fading, burying itself underneath new memories, the fresh skin under a scab covering over it. 

"How can I help you?" he asks. 

"Mr. Horan?" a police officer says. He's gruff, and Niall hasn't seen him before. Maybe he's not a policeman after all. Niall steps back to let him in, and that's when he sees Simon Cowell.

"Niall," Simon says. "That will be all," he says to the policeman, offhand. 

"Mr. Cowell," Niall says. Bressie sits up, looking over the back of the sofa, brow furrowed in soft concern. He keeps quiet.

"As you know, I've been doing some research," Simon says, diving straight into it before Niall tries to anxiously make conversation.

Icy fingers trail down Niall's back, and the warm ache from earlier is gone. All he feels now is the black heaviness in his chest, the rotting corpses climbing out of the water to wrap slimy limbs around him, dragging him down with them. The walls start to close in. "Of course," he says, trying for nonchalance. 

Simon peers around the room, rudely snooping into Niall's things. Bressie excuses himself. "Mr. Griffiths has discovered some--things. About Louis, about his time here in Italy." Niall holds his breath, his vision going wavy around the edges. "Indelicate things. A troubled girl in back in Ischia. The dead friend. His--unorthodox roommate who has been so concerned." Simon clears his throat. "I'm sure you understand that besides the lack of album, there is a lot more at stake here for the label. For me personally." Niall nods, blank-faced, hardly daring to believe what Simon is implying. "Sometimes, Mr. Horan, in business, it's better to just cut one's losses."

"I don't--"

"Hear me out now, lad. Louis's not inconsiderable contract won't be paid out. We have a certain amount set aside, you see, and all the rights to what there is of the album so far which, frankly, will do well enough. It'll sell. Artists always appreciate posthumously, you know." Simon turns to fix a piercing look at Niall. "I know you helped Mr. Tomlinson ever so much with his work. I think you'd be entitled to a considerable sum. No need to divulge any of the behind-the-scenes processes. You'd be very comfortable."

"Of course," Niall says, careful.

"I'll have my lawyer draw you up papers and have them delivered to you here shortly. Don't," he adds suddenly, "speak of this. Just get on the first boat out of Italy and never look back. Understand?"

Niall nods. He clenches his fist around Louis's ring in his pocket and takes deep, steadying breaths. "I understand, Mr. Cowell. Let me show you out." Simon nods, curt, and it isn't until he's safely outside and visible in the piazza beyond Niall's balcony that he lets himself slide down the wall, shivering with relief.

Bressie's shadow falls across him, broad shoulders silhouetted against the window. "I have to go," Niall says, looking up at him, eyes wet.

"I'll come too," Bressie says, crouching down, offering Niall one strong hand, pulling him close. He smells like butter and grass and Italian shampoo, and Niall takes a deep, trembling breath.

"I mean go," he says. "Back to Ireland. Away from everything."

Bressie looks at him, worry in his eyes, and kindness as always. It hurts, grinding against the broken places in Niall's heart. "I said, 'I'll come too,'" Bressie repeats. "They can find someone else to conduct."

"How soon can you be ready?" Niall asks, breathless.

"Time me," Bressie says. He doesn't even ask why they have to go.

*

The boat is a medium-sized liner with cabins and a dining room but nothing like the ship Niall took across the Atlantic. Bressie can barely fit in the bed in his berth, but he laughs it off and pulls Niall down on top of him. "At least you don't take up much room do you, Chief," he says, cheeky, and Niall laughs, peering out the window at the free-wheeling flight of seagulls against the opal grey sky. He's windblown and buoyant from being out on deck, Bressie so warm and kind-eyed still. Bressie had pressed him immediately up against the wall as soon as they found their rooms, hand splayed over Niall's collarbones. 

Bressie kisses him on the bed, now, his stubble rubbing against Niall's smooth jaw. It's rough and foreign and feels incredibly good. Niall has never much cared for kissing before, bored after anything more than a few moments. He's not bored now. Bressie pulls him close with strong arms, a hand spread over Niall's back. He's always fought feeling small before, but in this moment he loves it. He feels safe, looked after. Like even the biggest, darkest voids inside him could be contained by Bressie. Like no horror would be too much.

That's a lie though. Of course it is. If Bressie knew, he would be disgusted. He would be horrified. Niall's evil would leak out his pores, sticky and black and viscous, and Bressie would shove him away. Want nothing to do with him and the cellar full of demons inside him.

Bressie doesn't know. Instead, he clutches at Niall, fingers twisting in Niall's shirt, hauling him in like he weighs nothing, kissing him with ragged breaths and a heated desperation that makes Niall's cock fatten up, pressing up towards his waistband. One of Bressie's big hands cups Niall's thigh, holding him close, pulling him into Bressie's lap. That hand spans half of Niall's arse, a finger teasing unintentionally along the seam of his trousers. Niall makes an embarrassing sound in the back of his throat as he pushes into it. 

Bressie pulls back just enough that when he opens his eyes he can see Niall's face. His lips are kiss-slick pink and his eyes are half-lidded. "Jesus," he murmurs, rubbing his hand the same way again, deliberately this time, slow and hard. It pulls his flies tight over his dick as well, too much and too hot everywhere at once.

"Fuck," Niall says, barely more than breath. "Oh Christ, Brez--"

"I want to fill you up," Bressie says, mouth pressed to Niall's ear, hot breath on the side of his face. "I want to make love to you, Niall, and hold you, and stay in you all night. Will--can I do that?"

Niall's eyes slip shut and Bressie presses a palm over Niall's cock, working it with the heel of his hand through Niall's trousers until he's humping his hips up into it, lost to the sensation. He doesn't care what he looks like, he doesn't care what he sounds like, not when Bressie has him pinned like this. Not when Bressie wants him so badly like this. "Are you gonna come for me, darlin'," Bressie murmurs. "Are you gonna come in your pants like a schoolboy?"

Niall sobs out a breath and can't stop himself when he starts to come. His whole body shakes and his cheeks flush with shame, thighs spasming around Bressie's hips. He clings to Bressie, buries his face in his chest so he can't see the wetness clotting Niall's eyelashes, so he can muffle the whimpering as his hips work compulsively, pumping hot into his underwear. "Yes," he whispers, Bressie's hand wedged thickly into his crack, stroking him like it's a comfort instead of incendiary.

"Messy," Bressie says, voice deep and affected. He hitches Niall up against him, arms going around his back now to hold him close. Niall can feel Bressie's nose and lips against his scalp, brushing gently through his hair, nuzzling at him. "So fucking hot. Watching you fall apart like that. You letting me do this to you. Shit." Niall takes shuddering breaths, unable to look up at Bressie or say anything at all. He's wrung out with his clothes still on. His flies still done up. He's mortified. "Tell me you're okay?"

"I'm okay," Niall manages, squeezing his arms around Bressie's chest.

"It's good to take the edge off first," Bressie says. "It's gonna be a long night if I have anything to say about it."

Niall sits up, eyes still downcast, hands rubbing in little circles over the hard muscles of Bressie's sides. The fabric against his fingertips is soothing. "I'm disgusting now," he says, the corner of his mouth twitching up.

"I wouldn't say disgusting." Bressie hooks a finger under Niall's chin, bringing their faces level, looking him straight in the eyes. Bressie's gaze is a warm brown, and Niall feels it pooling pleasantly in his belly. "Shower, perhaps?"

Niall nods, muscles feeling slow and thick like molasses, and Bressie leads him to the tiny en suite shower with an indulgent grin.

"Come up on deck with me," Niall says afterwards, clean and dressed and languid, tucking himself into the peacoat he hasn't worn since before he ever met Louis. It feels welcoming instead of stifling, as he used to think. He walks out back to the railing, longing to be arm-in-arm with Bressie but thinking better of it. Bressie follows close behind him, body heat like a touch in the cold sea winds. 

"Do you ever wonder," Bressie says, arm around Niall's shoulders, "what if Louis really did kill Zayn?" Niall stiffens, but Bressie pushes on, unable to feel it through their layers. "Can you imagine? Getting up every morning, going about your life. Tormented."

"I don't know," Niall says slowing, looking out at the rolling grey clouds in the distance. "I imagine it'd be just like anyone else. You take every bad thing in your life, gather them all up. Lock them in the basement. Never think about them again."

Bressie laughs a little, pressing a chaste kiss to the top of Niall's head. "That's not very good for you though, is it. I used to keep my demons locked away, too, but it's never worth it in the end." That he can't possibly know what he's really saying, who he's saying it to, makes Niall's insides curdle.

"One day," Niall continues, looking up at Bressie who is looking out at the waves, at the gulls and the whitecaps, "you meet someone special. And you want to give them the key. Throw open the door: this is everything. This is who I am." Bressie squeezes him around the shoulders, looking down now, fondness in his slightly sad smile. "But you can't." Niall closes his eyes. "Because it's dark. And there are monsters who will devour them. And if anyone saw how awful it was--"

"That's the weather talking, darlin'," Bressie says, bringing his hands together around Niall blowing into his palms. "If we were back on the beach in Ischia, there'd be none of this doom and gloom."

"I keep wanting to do that," Niall says. He takes Bressie's wrists in his hands, bringing them down. "Not the beach, the throwing the door open. Letting the light in. Cleaning everything out." Bressie meets his eyes, gentle concern in every line of his face as he listens. "The thing is, Bressie, if--" Niall trails off, smiling sadly at his own feet, the words clamouring to come out but his mouth unable to say them.

"No key, hm?" Bressie says, hugging Niall tightly to his chest.

They make the rounds of the decks, and Bressie begs for a nap. "Don't you dare tell anyone I get seasick," he says with a grin. "My dark secret." Niall avoids the cabin, sure the walls will close in on him if he stays there long, the dark corners of the ceiling drawing together until he's crushed into their nothing. 

He stays out on the lower deck, watching the birds floating on the waves, thinking of music and keys and and the shine of bone through slippery flesh.

"Louis Tomlinson?" someone calls, and Niall turns around, hunted.

It's Liam Payne, of the textile Paynes. 

"Liam!" Niall shouts, smile against the icy knife of wind cutting into his side. "Fancy meeting you here!"

"I thought that was you I saw with Bressie at the pier," Liam says, eyes crinkled and smile wide. He radiates simple joy, and Niall feels sick and blank as quickly as he can blink. "I didn't know you two knew each other!"

"We met in Rome," Niall says, trying to force conviviality, but he feels flat. "He's so upset he couldn't come along, but he has a gig. Conducting. Couldn't miss it."

"Aww, that's a shame," says Liam. "You should meet my family, though." He sounds pleased. "Aunt and uncle and just about the whole crew are here. On our way back to the ancestral home, you know." He waves at a group of people in rich-looking coats gathered on the upper deck. He elbows Niall, who waves as well. A few peel off and head toward them. "This is Louis Tomlinson," Liam says, gesturing at Niall. "Louis, Ruth, my sister." 

Niall nods pleasantly. "Lovely to meet you," he says, Louis's voice choking him. Ruth gives him an odd, appraising look. "If you'll excuse me, I really need to go. Not feeling particularly well."

Liam winks. "We all know how it is. Hope it gets a bit easier."

"Does it ever really get easier?" Niall says. Liam seems at loss, and Niall ducks below deck with a barely stifled sob. The darkness is closing in on him now, and there's no way to stop it. There's no key, no throwing open the door.

He steps quietly into Bressie's cabin, back pressed against the door. Bressie doesn't move or acknowledge him at all at first, asleep. He jerks after a moment, eyes blinking open. "You startled me," he says, but his voice is soft and low. "Come here, Niall."

"No," Niall whispers. "I can't."

"No one can see you here, pet," Bressie says, sitting up just enough to grab Niall's hand in the small room, tugging him over to the bed. 

"What if we just stayed in here for the rest of the trip?" Niall says, quiet, matching Bressie breath for breath. Liam can't speak to Bressie. Liam's whole family know Niall as Louis.

"Naughty," Bressie says, with a gentle grin. "We couldn't though, Liam would track us down."

"What?" Niall clenches his fingers tight around Bressie's wrist.

"Liam Payne. I saw you with him up on the deck a minute ago. Came back down here rather than get caught up in smalltalk. I didn't realise you knew him. He'll hardly let us get away without putting in several more appearances than we'd like." He's right. 

Niall shivers, wrapping his hands in his silk scarf, sliding it back and forth on his neck. His mind races. "I lied," he says. "To Liam. He thought he'd seen you. I said you weren't here."

"Why lie?" asks Bressie, the edge of hurt breaking Niall's heart.

"You know why."

"I'm so lost." Bressie is apologetic, contrite. 

Niall brushes a thumb over his knuckles, darkness closing in. "I'm lost," he says. There's no way out of this, no way to keep the lies straight and Bressie protected. "I'm going to be stuck in the basement, aren't I?" He takes a shuddering breath. "Terrible. Alone. And I've lied about who I am so many times I don't even know what's real anymore. Where I am. No one will ever find me."

"What do you mean, lied about who you are?" Bressie asks, one hand cupping Niall's face, so gently, the care hurting as much as pain would've. More.

"I only ever wanted to make music, to be what I always dreamed I could be," Niall says, voice cracking. "I would've done anything. I didn't realise how far that reached. How far I would go. It was all for nothing--I'm nothing. No one."

"What are you talking about? You're not no one. You're somebody to me." Bressie brings him in close, and Niall hides his face against Bressie's shoulder, eyes prickling.

"Niall Breslin, tell me some good things about Niall Horan." He pushes Bressie slowly down onto the small bed, the fringed ends of his scarf tickling over Bressie's belly, his arms. The knowledge of what he has to do doesn't come to him as a realisation, just as the tragic weight of inevitability. It was always there, somewhere.

Bressie smiles up at him. "Niall Horan is funny," he starts. 

Niall slips the scarf off his neck, trailing the soft silk over Bressie's skin. Bressie's eyes drift shut. 

"You're gorgeous."

"You're blind," Niall says, and he laughs, but it's choked with tears.

"You seem so open, but you're not really. You have mysteries and secrets." He pulls Niall down over him, onto his chest. "You're talented. You're full of music. You have someone who loves you very much." He smiles, eyes soft and dark, and Niall leans all his weight on Bressie's chest. Everything is numb. He wraps his hands tight in the silk of his scarf. He slips it over Bressie's neck and pulls it taut.

There's no other way.

"Niall, you're--" Bressie starts, and Niall slips off the bed, his weight pulling down on Bressie's neck over the edge. He chokes and his voice cuts off, sputtering and dying into soundless gasps. 

It's a long moment before Niall realises the noise he hears is his own sobs. He can't feel the wracking of his chest or the tears on his face.

When he's back in his own room that night, he closes the door and locks it behind himself. He sits alone in the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> As those who, like me, are obsessive about the book and movie will no doubt spot, some dialogue is from the source material--I loved it too much not to use it!
> 
> Title from the song for the film's soundtrack by Sinéad O'Connor.


End file.
